Former CSU Minister Franz Josef Pschierer is moving to the FDP

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Formerly CSU, now FDP: Franz Josef Pschierer

Photo: Soeren Stache / picture alliance

He has been a member of the Bavarian state parliament for the CSU since 1994 – now Franz Josef Pschierer is moving to the FDP one year before the state elections.

The »Münchner Merkur« and the Bayerischer Rundfunk report on this.

The FDP parliamentary group has now confirmed the newcomer.

At the CSU, the change of the former Bavarian Economics Minister was received with anger.

"Obviously someone forgot his character in the minister's body - pathetic," wrote the parliamentary manager of the CSU state parliamentary group, Tobias Reiß, on Twitter.

The change has no impact on the majority in the Bavarian state parliament, the CSU remains by far the strongest faction.

Seehofer's daughter also went to the FDP

The 66-year-old Pschierer was appointed Minister of Economics in 2018 by the then newly elected Prime Minister Markus Söder. Before that, Pschierer was State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Economics for several years.

After the 2018 state elections, the Free Voters took over the economic department, and Pschierer then became chairman of the CSU SME Union.

For the Bavarian FDP, the personnel is the second coup related to the CSU in a few days.

It has been clear since Sunday that Susanne Seehofer is a direct candidate for the FDP in the state elections in Munich.

She is the daughter of the CSU honorary chairman, former Bavarian Prime Minister and former CSU boss Horst Seehofer.

Seehofer was chairman of the Christsozialen from 2008 to 2019.

His 31-year-old daughter is still drawn to the Liberals.

She became a member in April 2021.

"I'm fascinated by the Bavarian principle: live and let live," she told SPIEGEL.

"For me, no party embodies that as much as the FDP." The FDP parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament currently consists of eleven members, ten of whom are men.

mrc/AFP