The CSU Munich has a new boss: Justice Minister Georg Eisenreich will lead the party into the future – and should get the office of Lord Mayor as the most urgent order in 2026. Not as a candidate, but as a strategist and top champion. He was “proud to be a member of this CSU Munich. We can make even more of it and I want to take it step by step together with you,” said Eisenreich in his speech on Thursday evening at the party conference of the Munich CSU at Nockherberg. In the subsequent election he received 83 out of 84 votes. “Madness, thank you very much. I am very happy to accept the election,” said the new district chairman.
The 50-year-old Eisenreich replaces Ludwig Spaenle as a strong man in the Munich CSU after ten years, who was adopted by his party colleagues with a standing ovation and immediately elected honorary chairman. “It was an honor for me,” concluded his last speech as Munich boss. With his own district behind him, Eisenreich wants to continue to be involved in the cabinet.
The post is not a guarantee for a seat at the government table, as Spaenle painfully learned in 2018. But it is unlikely that a prime minister will knock a Munich CSU boss out of the cabinet twice in a row. On Thursday, Söder praised Eisenreich in his speech at the party congress, as it should be for a candidate, but this also applied to the entire Munich CSU – and of course to the Prime Minister himself, who, in his own opinion, governs very well.
“You have support from my side,” said Söder. He is aware that the CSU has a harder time in the city than in the country. And in order not to give Eisenreich too much self-confidence, he reminded him that they don’t always agree. Which, from Söder’s point of view, shouldn’t be his fault.
The election of Eisenreich, which had been agreed for months, was only tense because of the special circumstances in Munich. The question was not whether he would be elected, but with what result. The time of internal party quarrels seems to be over, but a few at the top decide on the line of the party and on careers. Eisenreich is one of them, and as a long-time vice-president in Munich, he already ruled heavily within the party. Sometimes so hard and powerful that the delegates sometimes punished him with a very average result in previous board elections, such as in 2017. The result of Thursday evening now shows: Eisenreich can gather the Munich CSU very closely behind him.
Spaenle had surprisingly announced in autumn 2020 that he wanted to hand over the district to Eisenreich ahead of time. But the corona virus prevented all attempts for an early election. Now it took place at a party congress on a regular basis. There was no serious opponent for Eisenreich. CSU General Secretary Markus Blume would not have harmed a district in the back for his power options in Bavaria, but of the nine powerful district chairmen all but him are said to have spoken out in favor of Eisenreich.
It should have gone up with another personel: Kristina Frank, the mayor candidate of the last local election, accuse some party leaders behind closed doors that they were not very interested in coming to terms with the bad results of the CSU 2020 and that they are concerned with the grassroots don’t care. The future boss Eisenreich is said to have been forced to give a first word of power in advance. It was to be assumed that Frank would be re-elected as deputy chairwoman. With only 46 out of 79 valid votes, she achieved a result that can be considered a brutal lesson and shows that her future career will not be a sure-fire success.
The city party wants to make Eisenreich fit for the local elections in 2026 with a strategy process. A basic program is to be drawn up on a broad basis by 2024. To this end, 17 specialist forums have already been decided to deal with the future content of the CSU. That should also attract new groups of voters, said Eisenreich. “I want us to be more attractive to women and young people.”
He wants to continue trying the balancing act between conservative values (a reference to Strauss should never be missing in a speech) and the liberal city party. To do this, he wants to set social priorities. “Munich is expensive, very expensive. People with normal incomes, families and senior citizens must still be able to afford life in Munich in the future. That is a very personal matter to me.”
Eisenreich knows very well that new ideas and approaches will be necessary, that he will take over the Munich district in a phase of a clear downward trend. Since the successful local elections in 2014, one defeat has followed another. The year 2018 was particularly bitter for the Munich CSU: First, Prime Minister Söder threw the district chairman and, until then, a friend, Super Minister Spaenle from the cabinet.
In the fall of the state elections, the CSU lost five of nine direct mandates to the Greens, including that of Spaenle. In the 2020 local elections, the party missed all three goals: victory in the OB election, entry into the city council as the strongest parliamentary group and participation in government.
As the future main opponent in Munich, the Greens have long been in the focus of the CSU – and will stay there. At the top of the CSU, given the current state of the SPD at all political levels, one does not expect that there will be a three-way battle for power in the city in 2026. Also in the federal elections this autumn and in the state in 2023, the CSU candidates will work their way through to the Greens, so it can be heard. Eisenreich should bring about the trend reversal in the results – and is also responsible for this.