Finally, a moment of calm. It’s getting late, the buffet looks a bit overdone. Bernd Sibler (CSU) got hold of some bread, grilled aubergines, now he’s standing there in the corner with a plate in his hand and says: “In my opinion, the topic is no longer that important.” He means the talk of the people who are now blaspheming that the CSU thinks they can regulate the succession here in Deggendorf from Munich, quasi monarchically. Has everything settled down again, says Sibler. For real?
Sibler, 51, came to the Metten monastery to campaign for people to elect him Deggendorf district administrator on Sunday. For the CSU, the district in Lower Bavaria is something of a test laboratory for the 2023 state elections. Hardly anywhere else are the party’s difficulties concentrated as much as here. Most recently, in the federal elections, the CSU came to a meager 33 percent in the Deggendorf constituency – while their right-of-centre rivals, Freie Wahler and AfD, together also got almost 30 percent. The CSU once located its conservative core clientele in rural areas: Church, clubs, farmers, the simple people, as they say. In the 2023 election, the CSU wants to get their votes back, that is the goal of party leader Markus Söder. If you like, the district election is a first, small dress rehearsal.
So a three-way battle, CSU, Free Voters, AfD – albeit with clear favorites: Sibler. The AfD has a stronghold in Deggendorf, not everyone sees the party here as a right-wing riot gang, but rather as a right-wing CSU. The fact that the election is necessary at all has to do with state politics. In February, Söder brought Deggendorf district administrator Christian Bernreiter to Munich as Minister of Construction. A personality that is primarily aimed at the CSU election campaign in 2023. Because for Söder, Bernreiter embodies everything that the CSU seems to be missing in the country: he is close to the people, knows their concerns. The new district administrator should now be Bernd Sibler, of all people, ex-science minister, who was also kicked out of the cabinet because of Bernreiter.
“I’m skeptical,” says one, “I have a strange feeling,” says another from the Sibler fan camp, when asked about the chances of their favorite in Metten Abbey. The thing with the “chair back,” it says there, the castling with Bernreiter, that’s what some use this image of a special party that drives people away from the CSU. And then there is the CSU toll scandal, the CSU mask scandal, plus the resignation and plagiarism scandals surrounding ex-Secretary General Stephan Mayer and the new General Martin Huber. The CSU was in a better position.
Free voters criticize post haggling
One person who wants to benefit from this in Deggendorf is Stefan Achatz, a candidate for the Free Voters. “As a grassroots mayor, you gain so much experience that you can’t gain in state politics,” Achatz teased Sibler. “I, as a representative of the community family,” he likes to say. The Free Voters come from below, that was always the narrative of this party. “They up there,” Achatz prefers to stuff the CSU into this role. And with it Bernd Sibler.
Achatz, 41, has been mayor of the municipality of Bernried since 2014, before that he was an administrator there for a long time. “You can score with that,” he believes, “the citizens appreciate it.” What don’t they appreciate? “Posten haggling,” he means Sibler and Bernreiter and their possible exchange of offices. You meet Achatz in a Deggendorf tavern for a quick wheat beer. He has just said a word of welcome on the town square at the May rally of the trade union federation. Let’s continue straight away, erecting the maypole in Edenstetten. He stands for the “free voter mentality,” says Achatz: “smacking with the citizens,” bringing together all interests with common sense. The CSU is increasingly lacking this ability, “a home-grown problem”.
Stefan Achatz, the Free Voters candidate, could force Sibler into the runoff. Maren Lex (in the foreground) from the Greens are hardly given any chances.
(Photo: Armin Weigel)
It all sounds a lot like Hubert Aiwanger, the FW boss, who sees himself as an expert on down-to-earthness and, before he became Economics Minister, never missed an opportunity to attest the CSU “felt”. One hears about Aiwanger in Munich that, in his opinion, “something could happen” in Deggendorf with the “hands-on mayor”. “The CSU thinks this is a sure-fire success. It won’t,” says Achatz. He wants to “replace the CSU after 44 years and beat a retired minister so that people can see: It can also be done without the CSU”. And: “Of course, the election has national political significance.”
Well, says Sibler, “it’s primarily a choice of personality.” And of course there is something to it. If people voted strictly according to party preferences, Heinrich Trapp (SPD), for example, could never have been district administrator in Dingolfing for almost three decades. Nevertheless, the CSU feels the competition from the FW, especially in local politics. After all, the Free Voters make up 14 of the 71 district administrators. Soon 15? That the competition is now the image of Minister a. D., who suddenly marks the top dog after years in Munich, Sibler doesn’t want to let that stand. “I’ve never been away.”
“Closer to the people” is the CSU slogan on his flyers. In Sibler’s case, that’s not a hoax. Whoever watches him in Metten sees a man who likes to be among the people. He addresses almost everyone on first-name terms, shakes hands, pats shoulders, he can’t help it. In the years as state secretary and minister, he always offered citizen consultation hours at home, every month, he has been doing this for 25 years. Even when Sibler became a minister, anyone could call him directly, his cell phone number is in the phone book. Nobody who is bothered by people does that. Sibler sees his impressive first vote result (48.2 percent) in the 2018 state election as proof of his groundedness, which the competition denies him. Surely it is also proof of his fame.
“Cabinet reshuffles happen.”
Becoming known quickly is a sore point for Stefan Achatz. Not only in Bernried, Lalling and Hunding, but also on the other side of the Danube, in Plattling and in Osterhofen. A problem that AfD candidate Katrin Ebner-Steiner does not have. As a “populist in a dirndl” she attracted hordes of reporters to Deggendorf during the 2017 federal election campaign, and focused fully on the issue of refugees, which moved the region very much – and the AfD got 19.2 percent from the start. As a member of the state parliament, she rarely wears a dirndl, usually wearing a skirt and blouse. The relatively strong AfD election results in Deggendorf have remained since 2017. All the arguments in the state parliamentary group, the shrill tones and right-wing extremist scandals of the Bavarian AfD apparently did little harm to “our Katrin,” as her party friends call her here.
The May rally of the DGB should hardly contribute to the awareness of the FW applicant Achatz. 47 people stand in the Deggendorfer Nieselgrau. 45 when the police quickly withdraw, there is nothing to secure. Almost all guests are trade unionists, city councilors or dignitaries. The mobilization potential of the DGB would be another topic. In any case, Achatz says very briefly that he has learned a lot as a staff councilor in the community. Thanks. Later he goes back on stage and praises the “valuable work” of the union. Because the others talked much longer, including Sibler, especially on the state government’s education policy. Political professional, learned is learned.
Katrin Ebner-Steiner is a bit reminiscent of a Lower Bavarian Marine Le Pen. She is comparatively moderate. The powerful sayings makes them tap others.
(Photo: Johann Osel)
Ebner-Steiner was not invited to the DGB, she held her own May Day rally on the same day. A good 90 people are there, “properly,” says Ebner-Steiner. Her helpers first move the pavilion in the direction of the stage to make the whole thing appear larger. The network, where the AfD is fighting, is streamed. Ebner-Steiner has eaten chalk for this election campaign, one almost thinks of Marine Le Pen. She says that in the days of Franz Josef Strauss “the world was still in order”. That the CSU is responsible for the second highest debt of all districts, the office should not be a “supply post for failed CSU officials”. Nothing that alarms the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. So that the topic of refugees is not forgotten, she has brought her clique from the state parliament with her. Christoph Maier warns of a “migration cult” that leaves no money for German families. “Our Katrin” prefers to tell how “fulfilled” she is by local politics.
The next day they all sit on the podium of the Deggendorf newspaper, Sibler, Achatz, Ebner-Steiner, as well as the candidates from the SPD and Greens, Thomas Müller and Maren Lex. The latter make a committed impression, but observers do not see any real chances in the structurally conservative region. It’s about local politics, about infrastructure, so that young people no longer run off to Munich. When the readers ask questions, Sibler gets on the defensive – it’s, once again, about the reason for the election. Mei, “Cabinet reshuffles happen,” you said, “it wasn’t agreed, we’re swapping now because it’s so funny”.
The decisive factor, says Sibler, is: who has the “tools” for the office? Only that would have to be decided by the voters – in a democratic election, mind you, not by nodding to a requirement from Munich. There, in the CSU circles in the state capital, they firmly believe that it will work with Sibler. Because of its qualities, most say. Some hope for a “compassion bonus” after the involuntary exit from the cabinet. Is the CSU really dependent on pity? Victory in the first ballot, “that’s the goal,” says Sibler. He takes the free voters seriously, and he doesn’t think the AfD has any great chances. Because of the “quarrels they have at the state level”. Deggendorf and state politics, it’s all connected.