demonstrations
Aiwanger counters criticism: Don’t let me silence you
Hubert Aiwanger, Economics Minister and State Chairman of the Free Voters in Bavaria, speaks at a demonstration against the traffic light government’s climate policy. photo
© Matthias Balk/dpa
After his controversial speech against the heating law, there was criticism of Bavaria’s Vice President Aiwanger. He takes it calmly and senses “left stitches” behind it.
Bavaria’s Deputy Prime Minister Hubert Aiwanger has rejected the accusation of populism because of his speech at a demonstration at the weekend. At a rally against the federal government’s heating law, he said in front of 13,000 people: “Now the point has been reached where the silent large majority of this country must finally take democracy back (…).” The Free Voters boss told the German Press Agency in Munich on Monday: “I stand by this sentence. The general population simply has to make itself heard again if it is not otherwise taken seriously.”
“Just because an AfD member said something similar at some point doesn’t mean it’s a taboo sentence for everyone else,” emphasized Aiwanger. With this “left stitch” he does not let himself be muzzled. “Tomorrow the AfD is calling for people to go to the Oktoberfest in lederhosen, then no one will be allowed to go to the Oktoberfest in lederhosen anymore – or what?”
After his speech, Bavaria’s state parliament president Ilse Aigner (CSU), among others, massively criticized Aiwanger’s choice of words: “You can consider the traffic light decisions to be right or wrong,” Aigner told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” and the “Münchner Merkur”. “But the decisions were made democratically. Even a deputy prime minister and leader of a party with government responsibility shouldn’t question that.” Other critics then accused him of choosing words in the style of the AfD.
“I think we hear the election campaigners out here, of course, that’s very clear populism,” said Federal Building Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) on Monday in the RTL / ntv “early start”. Aiwanger should be happy to have been able to live in a stable democracy for many decades. “Because that’s something that should neither be despised nor disregarded.”