After the disaster in the federal election, CSU leader Markus Söder has long since started the election campaign for the most important of all elections for the CSU. According to the general opinion in the party, this is always the state election in Bavaria – and in 2023 it is not just about maintaining power for the CSU, but also about Söder’s political fate. At just under 32 percent, as in September in the federal government, he would probably be chased out of the yard. In addition to a cabinet reshuffle in February, the new Secretary General, Stephan Mayer, should also ensure success. “Rural area, conservative, Catholic,” Söder described the newcomer. A bit clumsy, thought quite a few even in their own party. Others observed that since then Mayer has not really developed a profile in either Munich or Berlin and has only been moderately visible in the media. It has already been whispered whether things are going well with this general?
Now Mayer’s time is over with a bang, he resigns. For health reasons, he says. Behind it is probably above all that he is a reporter of the brightly colored is said to have threatened “annihilation”. The magazine had previously reported on alleged spicy details from his private life. The CSU now has the damage, Söder has the damage. He is actually said to have an excellent knowledge of human nature, a feeling for strengths or even more for the weaknesses of others. In addition, Söder is considered to be a control. Such a miscasting with an apparently thin-skinned, not positively argumentative party manager is also a debacle for him. As if the CSU didn’t already have enough ballast to carry with the mask affairs.
Mayer’s appointment in February was sometimes seen as an emergency solution both inside and outside the CSU, because her parliamentary group and her state group in the Bundestag are not exactly overpopulated with character heads or political big thinkers. It shouldn’t be any different with the replacement for Mayer.