The taunts of the free voters: Deliberate provocations against the CSU?

Created: 08/13/2022, 08:18

By: Mike Schier

There is still more than a year until the state elections.

But cracks are increasingly opening up in the alliance between the CSU and Free Voters.

It could be a turbulent campaign year.

Munich – The other day you got angry again in the CSU about Hubert Aiwanger.

For once, not because the Vice Prime Minister of his own government went to the parade, but because he went to Pähl.

There, in the Weilheim-Schongau district, cow dung on the street made national headlines and Aiwanger, who as Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy should actually have enough to do, poached in the very own territory of the CSU.

He was sure of the headlines.

And in the CSU, some wondered why the Upper Bavarian Minister of Agriculture had not come up with this idea.

Free voters already in campaign mode: taunts against the CSU

It is striking how much the Free Voters are already in election campaign mode, although the date for next autumn has not yet been set.

Almost every day there are new subject areas where cracks open up.

It is striking that Aiwanger is by no means the only one to appear.

The taunts are distributed over several shoulders.

On Friday, for example, it is Fabian Mehring's turn, Parliamentary Secretary in the state parliament.

He calls the privatization of Bayernwerk under Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber in the 1990s a historic mistake.

"By doing so, we gave up any state influence on the energy supply of the people in Bavaria and made ourselves completely open to blackmail," says Mehring.

Most of Bavaria's neighboring states had a state-supported energy company.

"We also need this in Bavaria, for example to be able to fill our gas storage tanks independently and to ensure the supply of people in our homeland even under difficult circumstances."

Dispute between free voters and CSU: Aiwanger openly criticizes

Mehring's broadside against the CSU fits into a series of conflicts.

Just a few days ago, Aiwanger explained in the BR that the CSU had "shied away from the will of the voters" for too long in the dispute over wind turbines.

If you were anywhere for a wind turbine, you were booed, says Aiwanger: "In this respect, you submitted to the will of the population as long as there was cheap gas."

But energy is not the only issue.

Three weeks ago there was a lot of rumbling in the cabinet because Aiwanger called for a construction freeze on the main route at the meeting.

The words "fill up" and "emergency brake" were uttered.

The CSU vigorously disagreed.

The uprising collapsed relatively quickly.

The project is of such dimensions that a clear no from the Free Voters would seriously question the coalition.

Tinkering with the 2023 election campaign: Hubert Aiwanger (left) and Fabian Mehring in the state parliament.

© Peter Kneffel/dpa

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There is also a strategic question behind the dispute: The Free Voters know that they have little to gain in the big cities.

They squint at the rural voters, for example in Lower Bavaria.

And there people are already asking critically what is still possible in view of the cost explosion in the state capital for their own region.

New conflict between FW and CSU is imminent: Corona laws in winter

Another point of contention looms in autumn and winter, albeit not a new one.

Corona has always weighed on the coalition.

Söder was the man for closing, Aiwanger for opening.

In the end, Söder mostly prevailed.

But does that also apply at the end of 2022?

This week, FW General Secretary Susann Enders made people sit up and take notice.

As a nurse, she rejected all further measures.

"We don't need another infection protection law as long as the corona virus in hospitals doesn't have any more serious effects than seasonal flu." The CSU Minister responsible, Klaus Holetschek, replied: "Complete nonsense".

Of course you need the law.

The opposition is watching the spectacle with interest.

"Now that the FW have been the bedside rug of the CSU the whole time, they are rediscovering their little bit of courage a good year before the state elections - and even socialism," jokes SPD leader Florian von Brunn, who of course is great at the energy infrastructure in the public sector find.

"But with Corona, we certainly won't get involved with Aiwanger's lateral thinking light.

That's not only dubious, it's also dangerous.” Incidentally, Aiwanger has already ruled out an opposition alliance with the SPD, Greens and FDP.

He would rather govern with the CSU.

You just don't always notice it.