The big stage of state politics is the plenary hall. But the actual parliamentary work is done in committees, small stages, unadorned conference rooms. The committees are circles of power that the public cares little about, but the political bubble all the more. You could feel it again in the state parliament, where everyone was gossiping about the power struggle in the CSU that had erupted over the chairmanship of the party’s internal working group on economics – and thus in fact over the chairmanship of the economic committee, to which the CSU has access. The candidacy of a woman who had just been deposed from power provided a topic of conversation: Kerstin Schreyer.
It’s been three weeks since Prime Minister Markus Söder saw her off as Minister of Construction. “Many don’t understand the decision,” said Schreyer afterwards. Some in the CSU saw this as a nightmare and interpreted her candidacy for the committee chairmanship as an act of revenge to demonstrate to Söder that she still had power in the CSU – and that she could use this power against him. Franz Pschierer, whom Söder dismissed as Economics Minister in autumn 2018, shows how annoying sawed-off cabinet members can be for Prime Ministers. Since then, Pschierer has been a colossal pain in the ass for Söder, whom he criticized for his Corona policy, and for his course in general (“understand who wants it – I don’t”). Pschierer recently mocked CSU Minister Michaela Kaniber, in which he quoted an allegedly furious farmer on Facebook: “No wonder when you make a tax clerk in Bavaria the Minister of Agriculture!”
In the case of Schreyer, it can be heard from the CSU that Söder’s confidants have been campaigning diligently for Schreyer’s opponent, Steffen Vogel. In Söder’s environment it is denied that the Prime Minister interfered. Some even see parallels to the power struggle in autumn 2013, when the then Prime Minister Horst Seehofer tried to prevent his favorite party enemy Erwin Huber from heading the Economic Committee. It was said that Seehofer had planned a “first-class funeral” for Huber – but Huber won the fight vote in the faction. Kerstin Schreyer also managed to do that on Wednesday. She clearly prevailed against Steffen Vogel.