CSU after the federal election: Söders share

After the poor performance in the federal election, the house blessing hangs crooked at the CSU. The displeasure is still directed against Laschet – but the role of party leader Söder is also increasingly being questioned.

Almost exactly two days before the Union’s worst election result in a federal election, Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet spoke a sentence that could still play a role in the coming weeks. “Put on warm clothes,” Laschet shouted at the end of the Union’s election campaign last Friday on Munich’s Nockherberg. And added with a view to the CSU chairman Markus Söder: “Armin and Markus – it will be a great team.”

At that moment Laschet addressed the political competition, alluding to possible coalition negotiations after the election. In fact, at that moment it was not quite clear who he wanted to reach with his fraternization. Söder himself? The many CSU members in the hall? The assembled journalists? Or is it the goddess of fate Fortuna?

Most people in the Union are clear: the two party leaders were a great team at most in the final spurt. Your fierce struggle for the candidacy for chancellor made the election campaign more difficult – from the CSU you can hear that the information booths were always about the “wrong” candidate Laschet.

The CSU was only worse in 1949

But the result in Bavaria is also devastating for the CSU: 31.7 percent. It is true that nationwide it exceeds the five percent hurdle, 45 CSU MPs will belong to the new Bundestag, all of whom are directly elected. But the CSU self-image suffers in view of the second vote result. “We don’t like our result in Bavaria,” says Söder. The party will “of course work through this in the next few days and weeks”.

After the party executive committee, he explains that the Corona circumstances, such as unusual large public festivals, had made the election campaign more difficult for the CSU. “Beer tents are not everything, but they are part of political communication in Bavaria,” says Söder.

Internal processing

How exactly the internal processing should look like remains vague at first. There is talk and debates behind closed doors about regional conferences. For the time being, the national political interpretation remains: After the party executive committee, Söder speaks of a “defeat” of the Union for the first time, and is more cautious about a Jamaica alliance made up of the Union, FDP and Greens (“not at any price”).

CSU top candidate Alexander Dobrindt attests the CDU weaknesses “in course and candidate” as well as no control over images. The election defeat would have been avoidable, “if, as Franz Josef Strauss said, you had buttoned your jacket right from the start,” says Dobrindt BR.

It is also noteworthy that Söder’s confidante and Bavarian Finance Minister Albert Füracker said that the CSU would have achieved well over 40 percent in Bavaria if Söder had run for Chancellor.

Main to blame for Laschet?

The main culprit for the poor performance of the Union is the CDU chairman, the CSU agrees. With regard to the role of their own party leader in the election campaign, there is also a need for clarification for some. Söder’s repeated taunts against Laschet (“sleeping car election campaign”) did not please all Christian Socialists. A CSU campaigner from a district association speaks of cross shots, saying that they did not know exactly how to make Laschet’s election palatable to the people.

Incidentally, Laschet was only posted very discreetly in the Free State. In addition: Even 17 percent of the Union supporters said shortly before the election, according to Infratest dimap: CDU and CSU are too divided to make politics together.

“Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense”

But what does this mixed situation mean for the inner workings of a party that its ex-boss Horst Seehofer once diagnosed as “nonsense, nonsense, nonsense” in the face of internal quarrels? Söder does not have to fear a revolt, was only recently re-elected as party leader and, as Bavarian Prime Minister, has high approval ratings. But the internal party questions could get louder, especially with a view to the course of renewal proclaimed by Söder.

According to the party leader, the CSU should become younger, greener and more feminine. Not everyone in the party thinks that the focus on climate protection is particularly useful, there are various old-school CSU members in the parliamentary group.

“CSU must position itself more broadly”

Former party chairman Erwin Huber provides a first foretaste of the upcoming debates. The 75-year-old, himself hunted from the court as CSU boss after 43.4 percent in the state elections in 2008, gives the “Münchner Merkur” an interview on the evening of the election. “Markus Söder is safe, as the party conference showed,” says Huber. “But the CSU must position itself more broadly.”

A one-man show is “out anyway,” the future belongs to the teams. The CSU European politician Manfred Weber makes a similar, but more cautious statement. So far there has not been any more cautious criticism from prominent party representatives, but there is still a lot in the fog: the formation of a government in the federal government, Laschet’s future, Söder’s exact position in all of this.

The second row also sees room for improvement. The re-elected direct candidate Angela Lindholz said that the election campaign was “really late in getting out of the quark.” The also re-elected Volker Ullrich speaks of “open flanks” in the Union. According to him, these lie in the areas of care and retirement.

“We have also not made it clear which points will be important for us at the federal level in the future,” he says. Ex-party leader Huber is also calling for substantive improvements: Söder is facing the great task of bringing modernizers and traditional regular voters together.

State election 2023 in focus

For the CSU and Söder, the Bavarian state election in 2023 is more important than this federal election. Here the party leader will have to deliver – even if the former CSU claim to provide an absolute majority has not been heard for a long time. How well the current state government continues to function will be shown: Because of the way she ran for the Bundestag election and various cross shots by Hubert Aiwanger in Bavaria, Söder is currently sharply criticizing his own coalition partner, the Free Voters. This would have stolen important votes from the Union and split the “bourgeois camp”.

When asked about the wish from the CSU to position itself more broadly, Söder points out that there are more deputies in the party than ever before. Regarding the role of the party index, however, there is a little saying by Seehofer from the CSU archive that burdens this reference somewhat: “The dog house is for the dog – and the CSU deputy is for the cat.”