As of: February 14, 2024, 4:19 p.m
By: Christian Deutschländer
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Everyone is waiting for Hubert Aiwanger's Söder replica.
But the FW boss sticks to himself on Political Ash Wednesday.
A swipe only goes to “someone”.
Deggendorf – At the end, with a hint of the Bavarian anthem still hanging in the hall, Hubert Aiwanger looks at the astonished journalists with a meaningful grin.
“Leave it alone,” he whispers.
He took care of the important issues today, “the other things are clear anyway.”
Everyone had been waiting for “the other thing”: for the CSU’s Free Voters leader to thunder out a response, so that the walls would shake.
But he doesn't.
No attack on the CSU: This time Söder bounces off Aiwanger on Ash Wednesday
Aiwanger has a political Ash Wednesday with attacks and a bit of polemic, but without attacks on his partner CSU, which, in addition to petty political quibbles, accused him of drifting to the right-wing fringe.
Aiwanger leaves it open whether it is leniency or punishment through disregard.
At most, his seconds in the party add under his breath that this is so much more confident than Söder's night-time running.
At one point Aiwanger says that he will not let “anyone” put him in “any corner”, his place is the “lived middle”.
The fact that this “someone”, i.e. Prime Minister Söder, is in Passau at the same time, is reflected this time.
Aiwanger prefers to use this appearance to disarm a little and to appease the many critics.
He identifies the traffic lights and the extremists on the left and right as the main opponents.
Aiwanger's Free Voters: More approachable than the CSU in Passau
There is a kind of “Passau light” in Deggendorf: smaller, more approachable, no political slogans printed out on the wall by the party headquarters, but the hall is so densely packed that the entry for the parade march of the Bayerwald Zwiesel band does not seem posh.
You can simply stroll up to the party leader, he sits at the front with a water.
The bottle is open, no chamomile tea camouflage in the clay jug like CSU boss Stoiber once had.
Not all speakers are so well-versed; unlike in Passau, you can sometimes mumble a punch line.
Hubert Aiwanger at the Free Voters' Political Ash Wednesday in Deggendorf.
© Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa/picture-alliance
A speaker stands out next to him.
Parliamentary group leader Florian Streibl, who is very critical of some things about his chairman, is promoting solidarity within the party without pandering.
“You can rub against us,” says Streibl, “particularly against Hubert at the moment.”
The Upper Bavarian addresses the simmering debate about direction.
“I’m not left-wing and certainly not right-wing,” he calls into the hall.
“I'm sometimes liberal, sometimes extremely conservative.
I'm in the middle.
And that's why I'm a free voter." There is no cheering, but genuine applause from the 700 or so people in the town hall.
But it is also a message to resist a shift to the right.
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Aiwanger, as the final speaker, does not object.
He also talks about “middle”.
“We don’t need extremists, we need a strong center.
We have to confront the extremists and put them aside.” He does not mention the party name AfD.
Aiwanger rails about the shutdown of nuclear power plants, citizens' money, pensions - and "woke" picking of the nose
As always, he speaks freely and understands the content.
He brings heat to the migration debate and the call for tougher border protection, which is applauded in the hall.
He criticizes the gentle treatment of Ukrainian refugees who do not work.
“We need people, for example in the catering industry, wherever,” to be “distracted from their traumas” while working.
He relates this to the authorities.
Work for Ukrainians is a “better integration than a grammar course with grammatical expressions that we don’t know ourselves.”
An integral part of the speech is also criticism of the excessive welfare state, in which “the average earner asks himself whether it would be better to register as a recipient of citizen's benefit”.
Anger about the nuclear phase-out: “In the end, we will be happy if we get nuclear power and coal-fired power from abroad.” Promoting the plan to make additional income of up to 2,000 euros tax-free in order to keep pensioners in the job market: Soon there would be “so many workers "We're retiring so much know-how that we're shaking our ears."
And mockery of the political bubbles that “pick people’s noses every day with woke topics.”
That's not enough for ecstasy in the hall, but for a very good atmosphere.
Aiwanger only calls out to the dozen police officers outside that they should actually go home: “Nothing will happen to us because the decent people are here.”
Christian Germans