Most recently, Ash Wednesday was twice what it should always be according to Article Three of the Bavarian Public Holidays Act: a “quiet day”. First because of the pandemic, then because of the start of the war in Ukraine. Now the silence is over, on the Political Ash Wednesday 2023, the parties will meet again in several Lower Bavarian cities to verbally beat each other up. “Fish instead of meat, but definitely not a light diet,” that’s what is expected Straubinger daily newspaper. Well, meal!
Of course she saves CSU not with exaggerations this time either. State group head Alexander Dobrindt calls the party event in Passau’s Dreiländerhalle, a rather sterile functional building that has absolutely nothing cathedral-like about it, a “cathedral of political culture.” Meanwhile, Martin Huber sticks to the well-known and monumental metaphors with which his party has always labeled its political Ash Wednesday. The CSU general secretary speaks of the “largest regulars’ table in the world”, of the “celebration of Bavarian politics”, of “it feels like 10,000 people” – although only a good 4,000 people are allowed in the hall. Although, this time it could feel really banging, at least compared to Ash Wednesday 2021. At that time, party leader Markus Söder was sitting in a rustic theater setting and the audience consisted of cardboard figures, whose applause came off the tape in line with the pandemic. Now Söder will speak again in front of real people who should be well-disposed towards him. The CSU recently came to 42 percent in a Forsa survey, which is impressive with the party audience, which this time is not being whipped by Lower Bavaria CSU boss Andreas Scheuer, who also received boos in 2019. But by his likely successor Christian Bernreiter. It’s an election year, nothing should spoil the mood.
Hubert Aiwanger has been warming up for Ash Wednesday for some time now free voter in the Deggendorf town hall. On Twitter, he banged on about the “green bubble” or “left-wing grass eaters” almost non-stop. She writes about the “Krawallwanger”. Picture and accurately states that “every day is Ash Wednesday” for the FW boss. So the temperature is right with Aiwanger, whose speeches have never been for the faint of heart. With him, the audience knows what it’s getting, only the recipients of his impertinence are different than before. Shooting against the CSU doesn’t work so well anymore since he’s governing with the CSU himself. On the last Ash Wednesday, Aiwanger had at least one warning left for Söder, who was flirting with the Greens at the time: “Always be careful who you let in the door,” said Aiwanger in 2021. Söder is no longer flirting, which is why the CSU can expect that Aiwanger’s fury hits the others this time.
“Your big trumps” offer the greens according to their own words in Landshut: the federal chairwoman Ricarda Lang as well as the top duo for the state elections Ludwig Hartmann and Katharina Schulze. Lang was a guest in Bavaria recently, at the parliamentary group’s retreat in Bad Wörishofen. There, in turn, Hartmann set an ambitious goal: “20 percent plus a very, very big X”. His party must become so strong in the fall that it cannot be bypassed when the government is formed. The situation of the Greens: They want to govern, but have no prospects for it yet. In surveys, they are constantly at the 18 percent of 2018, an apparently developed core potential. However, Söder has ruled out black and green, another majority is currently beyond imagination. The Greens therefore want to stylize the election as a “referendum on energy policy in Bavaria” – and Ash Wednesday should be the prelude to this. It will be exciting: How harsh is it against the CSU, with which one would actually like to form a coalition?
The SPD does not feature any Berlin celebrities this year. When this became known, the CSU promptly began joking: the Chancellery and the Willy Brandt House would have written off the state elections for the Bavarian comrades. Iwo, according to the SPD, was a conscious decision: In the election year, the top candidate Florian von Brunn should be the focus. And in fact, federal party leader Lars Klingbeil recently visited the faction in the state parliament and emphasized that Brunn and his people can count on proper campaign help from Berlin in 2023. The two new General Secretaries, Ruth Müller and Nasser Ahmed, will appear in Vilshofen.
The AfD invites you to Osterhofen, where regional head Stephan Protschka and the Lower Bavarian list leader Katrin Ebner-Steiner will speak. Gerald Grosz, Austrian publicist and ex-politician at the FPÖ and BZÖ, is expected. In a video by Bayern-AfD for Ash Wednesday, Grosz complains that the Greens are denying “the identity of the majority society”. This should set the tone for the meeting, at which traditionally not only members and sympathizers, but also those who protect the constitution listen carefully.
Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner meets a Bavarian in Dingolfing FDP, who is in dire need of encouragement. Most recently in Berlin and before that in other elections, head of state Martin Hagen and his people were able to watch the liberals fail elsewhere – the traffic light penalty, darn it. According to the latest surveys, the FDP would no longer come to the Maximilianeum. Hagen wisely wants to represent “pure FDP” in the election campaign and definitely doesn’t want to position himself in a traffic light camp. It is to be expected that Lindner will not bring any eulogies to the traffic lights to Dingolfing – but will emphasize which positions have actually been enforced in Berlin. Or, as it is said in FDP circles, “what we prevented from worse things against the SPD and the Greens”.
The extra-parliamentary opposition also celebrates Ash Wednesday. The left invites you on a ship in Passau, with Federal President Janine Wissler. The ÖDP is also planning a special campaign in Passau: a Söder double is to stage fracking drilling near the CSU hall. The Bavaria party in Vilshofen insists on being “the original”. An older peasant tradition of giving political speeches at the cattle market on Ash Wednesday was revived by them after the Second World War.