Snuggle up with "sumo wrestlers" Söder and Aiwanger - but things could get interesting soon

Created: 01/10/2023 10:10 am

By: Christian Deutschländer

Despite the election year, CSU boss Markus Söder wants to be careful with the free voters.

He even vows to continue the coalition until 2028.

It's not love, it's strategy.

Munich – There are funny sentences about Markus Söder from Hubert Aiwanger, a speaker who is as idiosyncratic as he is talented.

In 2018 he compared the CSU boss to a fat, flabby wrestler.

Anyone who goes to bed with a sumo fighter “who is four times your weight has to be careful not to get crushed”.

What the Free Voters boss wanted to say: The small coalition partner must be careful not to disappear under the much larger CSU.

Now, in their fifth year in the same political bed, it is clear that the warning was justified.

Everyday life in the coalition is a constant struggle for perception.

Söder and Aiwanger are the two busiest state politicians.

The prime minister has been touring the country for months.

No New Year's reception in the Upper Palatinate is too small, no Pope's funeral in Rome too big.

His deputy travels a similar amount, focusing on his party's core clientele, regional (hospitality/agriculture/forestry) businesses.

Söder and Aiwanger: Sumo tactics of crushing - or real cordiality?

Because the CSU and Free Voters have middle-class voters, they should be toughest competitors.

Instead, Söder is pursuing a charm offensive.

He affirms day after day that he definitely wants to continue governing with Aiwanger: "We want a middle-class Bavarian coalition." He warns the CSU against the dream of absolute majorities: "Self-confidence yes, but please don't stand out."

Söder's sumo tactic of crushing - or real cordiality?

In the CSU, reference is made more to the strategy behind it.

Committing to Aiwanger has great advantages in an election year.

Söder proves that his black-green phase, including hugging trees, is over.

With the middle-class coalition, he sets himself apart from Berlin in style and content, and can also vote more freely against the traffic lights in the Bundesrat.

"We are the counter-model to Berlin," says the CSU leader.

Politically, his deputy hasn't ticked any differently since the corona and wind power problems have been defused.

Aiwanger has his faction, which is not prone to uprisings, well under control, as does Söder.

And in polls, both have a stable majority, currently 41 plus 10 percent.

hubert-aiwanger-markus-soeder-carnival-2020.jpg © Daniel Karmann/dpa

Aiwanger's benefit: He positions himself as a "necessary corrective" and picks off conservative but Söder-skeptical voters.

Even one in four CSU voters is against a one-party government of their own party.

He is committed to the continuation: "I assume that we will not have to go through any socio-political experiments in Bavaria." The free voters probably also want to keep their ministries (schools, economy, environment).

CSU and Free Voters: Bavaria's counter-proposal to the traffic light coalition in Berlin

The free voters who go into isolation on Tuesday know Söder's motives.

However, you describe the cooperation at all levels as very friendly.

Both know that you need each other so that the coalition is an alternative to the traffic light, says parliamentary group manager Fabian Mehring.

From time to time, as a FW, you have to “clearly emphasize the authorship” of coalition decisions, such as higher salaries for teachers outside of high schools or the hydrogen strategy.

But there is hardly any "substantive dissent".

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does it stay that way

Under Horst Seehofer, the coalition partner – at that time the FDP – was praised and babbled about every six months.

Then he wouldn't answer the phone for days when a liberal called.

In the end, in 2013, the unsettled FDP was kicked out of the state parliament.

There is a heated debate in the CSU as to whether more edge is needed today.

Party deputy Manfred Weber has long been advising a more offensive confrontation with the free voters, but does not prevail.

Söder's friend Albert Füracker, CSU finance minister, also has a thick neck for the free voters, but does not complain publicly.

At best, what Söder is planning for the CSU retreat in Banz could be interesting.

He developed a stack of school policy plans over New Year's Eve - it could be about more lessons for teachers, compulsory internships for students.

School policy is actually a FW thing.

Christian Deutschlaender