And then Ilse Aigner (CSU) criticizes these sentences, where everyone in Parliament knows who is meant. Thursday afternoon, last session of the state parliament before the election in October, closing words by the President. “Our democracy is real, it’s alive and by no means formal,” warns Aigner. Hubert Aiwanger, Economics Minister from the Free Voters, had spoken of a “formal” democracy recently with Markus Lanz on ZDF. Aiwanger, who was just swiping around on his cell phone, looks up. And sees applauding parliamentarians – except in his group. Aigner goes one better: “We don’t have to take democracy back either.” She means Aiwanger’s controversial sentence at the Erdinger heating demo.
At the end, as the President wraps up her speech, Aiwanger won’t clap, not even a little. No knocking on the table, nothing. Unlike Prime Minister Markus Söder, who does not seem unhappy on the government bench about the scolding of his coalition partner. Could help with the trick that his CSU has to accomplish: campaign with a coalition statement for free voters, but lose nothing to the partner on the conservative flank.
Ilse Aigner’s closing words ended in a lecture. The focus is on the AfD, which shaped these five years of parliament. Uncomfortably shaped, emphasizes Aigner – also applauded by the parliament, including Aiwanger, with the exception of the AfD deputies. “It’s no coincidence that the tone here in the state parliament is noticeably brutal,” says Aigner. She calls the fact that the AfD entered the state parliament for the first time in 2018 “a turning point”. She speaks about “the partly uninhibited mood that is spilling over from the so-called social networks and from the streets into the parliaments, including the Bavarian state parliament”.
As president, she treats all factions equally and impartially, says Aigner. “But I’m not a neutral person,” it couldn’t be as a “democrat.” She will “not be silenced,” not by a party on the extreme right that has attracted attention in the state parliament through “arguments, scandals and provocations.” It commemorates a memorial service with Holocaust survivor Charlotte Knobloch, when a large part of the AfD faction left the hall. Or, for example, the appearance of a member of parliament with a gas mask at the lectern during the corona pandemic. That doesn’t mean that people used to “snuggle up” in parliament, as the AfD claims. But despite all the differences, disputes were fought with respect, also “for our democracy”. This respect is “now being trampled on by some, precisely by those who present themselves as patriots”.
MEPs should “set an example”
She can “sign everything,” says Katharina Schulze (Greens), who speaks for the opposition as head of the second-largest parliamentary group. The deputies have to “set an example” and watch “how we speak,” says Schulze — and turns her head in the direction of Aiwanger. Then she too says: “Our democracy doesn’t need to be brought back. It’s here and it’s alive.” People expect “decency instead of a culture war,” says Schulze. And promotes an election campaign that is “conducted with facts” and “raises firewalls against the right” instead of getting lost in populism.
The third and final speaker is the prime minister, whom the opposition criticizes for rarely being in the state parliament, but often in beer tents or at other festivals. You are sometimes “smiled at”, for example when you visit an “allotment club”, says Markus Söder. But the “connection to the people” is important in a democracy, “if we lost this feeling, then we would actually no longer be the representative office”. The government and parliament must “provide protection and support and hope”. In order to keep the country together, politicians must think of everyone, not just their own voters. Also a tip against Aiwanger? Some judge it that way afterwards. Nevertheless, Söder thanks his coalition partner for the cooperation over the past five years.
Ilse Aigner had pronounced 25 reprimands during this electoral term, above all for the AfD. “There hasn’t been one for decades,” she says, and announces that house rules will be tightened, a fine and other measures should she become President of Parliament again. She has no idea what is about to happen. As Green Party leader Schulze speaks, AfD MP Ralf Stadler marches to the lectern and holds up an anti-Green poster. President Aigner issues a reprimand. It’s number 26.