Comment from
Wolfgang Krause
The fact that the media competence of the CSU is not that far away has shown in the past few years not only in the total failure of the state government in the digitization of schools. While other parties have moved entire federal party conventions online, even during the worst phases of the pandemic, the CSU insisted that every local association gather its members in one room for elections. The district delegate assembly of the CSU Munich-Land is now to be held in the figurative sense in the back room – in presence, but without the press.
District chairman Florian Hahn explains this step by stating that the number of participants should be limited to a minimum due to Corona. That is as bold as it is transparent. When 160 delegates from the CSU local associations meet in a country inn in Sauerlach, a handful of reporters certainly doesn’t matter. The CSU is using the pandemic as a pretext to prevent unpopular reporting. The goal is not infection protection, but message control.
The background is presumably the emerging tensions in the CSU after the crushing defeat in the federal election. Due to his selfish behavior in the election campaign, Prime Minister Markus Söder gambled away a lot of sympathy in his own party. At the national party conference of the Junge Union, his long-time competitor Manfred Weber was celebrated demonstratively.
Söder fan Hahn must therefore expect that criticism of the party leader will also be expressed at the CSU Munich-Land. He apparently wants to keep this under the lid by allowing the election of the new district executive to go through with a quick hitch and excluding the public.