In Pähl, they have their own experiences with politicians from outside. Sometimes they at least bring money with them, for example as a grant notice or earlier in the form of oversized cheques. Or in cash like last year Minister of Economic Affairs Hubert Aiwanger. He had – always striving for transparency – as publicly as possible handed over a transparent envelope with 130 euros from his own pocket to a Pähler farmer in order to pay a fine imposed by the municipality for cow dung not being cleaned from the street.
Aiwanger was there on his own account in every respect. But some foreign politicians have also brought the Pähler into the village themselves by electing them mayor. One of them threw it down again in 2011 after just three years. And another, Marius Bleek, who was elected at the beginning of May, did not even take office on Tuesday.
Bleek’s swearing-in and appointment as registrar are still on Thursday’s municipal council agenda. But it had to be posted in good time, and Bleek’s letter was probably still on its way. Accordingly, Bleek sees himself “forced by unforeseeable circumstances” to resign from the office.
The circumstances were probably the least predictable for someone like Bleek, who had little or no experience with local politics in Pähler. The 29-year-old police officer from Germering, 40 kilometers away, was chosen anyway, or precisely because of that. That, in turn, says a lot about the Pähler policy, in which the Haudrauf Aiwanger would probably still belong to those with a less robust style. Although he and Werner Grünbauer, the mayor who has now been voted out and is by no means squeamish himself, are at enmity with one another, Aiwanger is not one of the suspects who might have hidden steel nails in Grünbauer’s corn field shortly before the last harvest.
Bleek certainly doesn’t have to worry about anything like that in Pähl, because he doesn’t even have a corn field there. How he is now included in the Pähler statistics is open. There have been seven mayors since 1945. The average tenure is roughly eleven years and one month, which Grünbauer just surpassed. Bleek either drastically lowers the cut. Or he just doesn’t count.