Suddenly there it was again, the ugh word for many in the FDP: “traffic light opposition”. When representatives of the Greens, SPD and Liberals recently presented their plans for two committees of inquiry in the state parliament, the press wanted to know: Is this a harbinger of a joint alliance in the 2023 election campaign, maybe even beyond? Well, said SPD parliamentary group leader Florian von Brunn, with the coalition in Berlin the cooperation between the three parliamentary groups in Bavaria has improved significantly, one would be “capable of governing at any time”. And Martin Hagen, head of the FDP parliamentary group? He almost seemed as if someone had asked the outrageous, and said rather dryly: As far as he knew, governments are only formed after an election.
This weekend, the Bavarian FDP is meeting for the party conference in Amberg in Upper Palatinate, a first kick-off for the state election campaign. “It’s about Bavaria,” is the motto. You have to think to yourself: and not about Berlin! As Hagen once explained, the participation in the traffic light came about out of “political responsibility”; at the latest after CSU party leader Markus Söder “buried” the Jamaica option in the federal government. On the other hand, it is an open secret that the government in Berlin, with all its constraints and especially in the crisis, is not good for state associations that are campaigning for elections.
This has been known since the recent election in Lower Saxony, when the local FDP was kicked out of the state parliament. And when the explanation pattern traffic light collateral damage was not long in coming. “We have to prevent left-wing projects from being implemented in this coalition,” said the Secretary General of the federal FDP, Bijan Djir-Sarai, promptly. In the latest BR Bayern trend, Martin Hagen and his people were able to read all of this for the Free State: a drop to three percent, the liberals would also be out of parliament in Bavaria. Even before that, it was known that the traffic light was not the most ardent wish of many sympathizers and members of the FDP, especially in the somewhat more conservative, well-known Bavarian state association. “We will not locate ourselves in a traffic light camp,” Hagen emphasized, probably in anticipation, as early as 2021 when the Berlin government started.
In terms of content, the party congress in Amberg is about Bavaria. The lead motion wants to outline how Germany and the Free State will become “resilient”, it’s about energy supply, supply chains, international dependencies and free trade agreements. But above all, the election of the top candidate for 2023 is pending: Martin Hagen. The state board and parliamentary group nominated their boss in October, and so far there has been no opposing candidate. Hagen led the FDP back to the state parliament in 2018 as the top candidate, just under 5.1 percent – after the party had accomplished the feat in the 2013 election as the governing party in the then black and yellow state government under Horst Seehofer (CSU). to fly Parliament. In November 2021, the 41-year-old also took over the state presidency. When he was nominated, he declared: “The election campaign will not be a walk in the park – but we can fight.”
The Bavarian FDP will probably conduct an election campaign that avoids the traffic lights in Berlin as much as possible. When asked by the SZ, Hagen announced “pure FDP” as an “independent liberal force”. In a position paper in January 2020, i.e. before Corona, the parliamentary group had already decreed “courage to controversy”. For a small opposition party in particular, it is important not to soften positions “because headwind is to be expected, perhaps a shitstorm on Twitter.” The fact that the liberals had a survey high in Bavaria after the start of the traffic light (seven percent in the January Bavarian trend 2021) may also have had something to do with the pandemic. So to speak, a continuing thank you from the core electorate for the sometimes very critical Corona course.
“Not homemade” – that’s also a term that you hear everywhere in the Bavarian FDP when it comes to the current polls. In fact, the smallest faction in the Maximilianeum has been making a lot of noise since 2018, and not just because of Hagen with his smart oratory. Many MPs are deeply involved in the issues, a doctor for health policy, an architect for building policy, for example. In general, the advantage of such a small faction is that it is agile, reacts quickly – not a big tanker in which everything has to be chewed through a thousand times. Add a bit of celebrity glamour. The faction includes exFocus-Boss Helmut Markwort, 85, who will compete again next year – so that at faction festivals with photographers brightly colored is to be expected, a rare sight in the state parliament. A media coup in 2023 should also be the candidacy of Susanne Seehofer for the FDP, daughter of the former CSU Prime Minister.
And what comes after the election? “We’re not ruling anything out,” says Hagen. They want to take responsibility for the Free State “and help to make our country fit for the future”. The CSU is “always a potential coalition partner for us”, there are “political intersections”. Recently Hagen had supported the preventive detention for climate activists after sticking actions in Munich as “tough but appropriate” and thus indirectly also the controversial Police Tasks Act (PAG) of the state government. The Twitter hustle and bustle came promptly, the FDP as a bailiff of the CSU, so one tenor. But Hagen doesn’t want to let that stand: It’s about the “application of applicable law” when there is a risk of illegal actions being repeated – and not about the specific design of the PAG; here he also pleads for a shortening of the permitted detention.
In Amberg it will be about other topics, “core competencies” of the FDP, as they like to say of themselves, about the economy above all, including finance. In Bavaria, too, the party wants to make a name for itself as a guarantor of sustainable financial policy, even in the crisis. Budget policy as an election campaign hit? Of course, the FDP knows that they have to offer more. Education and digitization are other topics on the agenda at the party conference. Martin Hagen often speaks of the necessary “update” for the Free State. He says: “Bayern needed an update in 2018 – Hubert Aiwanger got it.” From which it would also be easy to read who he would prefer to see instead of the free voters, in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and on the side of the CSU in the state government.