There are only 28 steps between contempt and fraternization. Downstairs, in the White Rose Hall of the state parliament, Markus Söder and Hubert Aiwanger haggled and every day made sure that the cameras in the hallways didn’t capture any pictures of them together. Up in the academy hall, Söder now grabs Aiwanger’s hand, shakes and shakes and doesn’t let go.
It’s the end of October, the two have just signed a paper that, given the status of this male relationship, is not a standard coalition agreement. More of a peace pact.
Their fight is over, after months. And he goes on. That’s what makes this relationship box so special: that at the moment of fraternization everyone is wondering how long the peace will last this time.
Sure, drama has always been part of Bavarian politics. But the ingredients of this election year were unheard of, even by Bavarian standards. Here is the Prime Minister who they are booing because he distances himself from right-wing extremists. There his deputy, whom they cheer because he wants to “bring back” democracy. Here Söder, who calls Aiwanger “adolescent”. There Aiwanger, who finds Söder “girly”.
And then there was the leaflet that appeared at the Mallersdorf-Pfaffenberg high school in the 1987/88 school year. The pamphlet called for an alleged competition, titled: “Who is the greatest traitor to the fatherland?” A “free flight through the chimney of Auschwitz” was offered. The SZ reported in August that Hubert Aiwanger was suspected of having written and distributed the leaflet. One or more copies were found in his school bag. Before the school’s disciplinary committee he was considered convicted and punished. Aiwanger admitted this after several blanket denials. The author of the pamphlet is said to have been his brother Helmut.
“Many questions remained unanswered” and not just for Söder. Why did Hubert Aiwanger carry the leaflets in his pocket? Did he distribute them? Did he attract attention with right-wing extremist behavior at school? Three of the 25 questions that Söder wanted answered in writing. Aiwanger? Complained about a “smear campaign” and went through beer tents and talk shows as its victim. The German Press Council found that the SZ reporting was not objectionable in terms of content or press ethics. But Aiwanger was successful in the role of victim.
In the state elections in October, his Free Voters gained 15.8 percent, plus 4.2 points. The CSU? Got 37 percent, minus 0.2 points. For Söder, this year has brought one certainty: he now knows how dangerous Aiwanger is for the CSU.
One would like to know whether Söder would enter into the threatening liaison with Aiwanger again, from today’s perspective. Söder only made Aiwanger great when he brought him into the government in 2018. It gave him a stage he didn’t have before. In the 2023 election campaign, Söder decided early on to continue with the FW. This “damaged the CSU and benefited Aiwanger,” said former CSU boss Erwin Huber to the SZ. The early coalition commitment gave Aiwanger “fool’s freedom”, which he used to his advantage.
The moment that tipped everything over was the Erdinger demonstration against the so-called heating law in June, when Aiwanger shouted to 13,000 angry people that “the silent vast majority of this country must take back democracy.” The Greens saw “Trump methods” and wanted Aiwanger’s expulsion. Söder? Clung to him. And even when Aiwanger hardly gave him any answers to his 25 questions in the leaflet affair, Söder supported his rival, about whom it is still not known whether he was “never” or just “not an anti-Semite in the last few decades”. And what exactly does he mean when he says he used to “do shit.”
The question, of course, is whether Söder could have afforded to be kicked out. His fixation on an alliance with the FW, his adulation of the “Bavaria coalition” – many CSU voters now saw and see Aiwanger and his party as allies. Anyone who asked around the CSU party people during the beer tent election campaign found few people who wanted to get rid of Aiwanger. Out of concern that the end result could be a black-green coalition or that Aiwanger could become a martyr and steal even more CSU votes. A risk that Söder didn’t want to take either.
The fact that the CSU’s fear of the FW has reached an existential dimension in this turbulent year was noticeable on the day after the Bayern election. “The grace period is over,” said CSU honorary chairman Theo Waigel. The FW are already “our opponents” in the 2024 European elections. The CSU must “distincate itself more strongly from the Free Voters,” demanded party vice-president Manfred Weber.
Since the election, Aiwanger has presented himself even more resolutely as the patron of the farmers, who were part of the CSU’s core clientele for decades. Most recently, he fraternized in Berlin with farmers who were demonstrating against the removal of subsidies. Meanwhile, Söder is practicing being a cosmopolitan statesman, as he did in December, during his trip to Israel. While Aiwanger has secured niche authority for hunting and state forests as economics minister, Söder wants to make him look small with his focus on the big issues, including foreign policy.
The second chapter of the “Bayern Coalition” had previously begun with an ultimatum. The FW, which has slipped to the right from the CSU’s point of view, should declare whether they are “firmly in the democratic spectrum”. The result is a preamble in the coalition agreement in which the old and new partners acknowledge “our historical responsibility and the principles of our democracy.” There is also talk of “optimism instead of arguments” and of “trusting and constant cooperation”.
So it fits again between Söder and Aiwanger. At least on paper.