The Deputy Bavarian Prime Minister Hubert Aiwanger does not want to be vaccinated against the corona virus at all. The attitude of the free voter boss is increasingly becoming a problem for Markus Söder. Will there be a showdown in Munich?
“Get vaccinated. For you. For me. For everyone.” In the Free State of Bavaria, the state government is beating the drum. A marketing campaign of its own is there to convince even the last to get immunized against the coronavirus. Because one thing is clear: the pandemic can only be successfully contained if as many people as possible can be vaccinated. “Finally going out to eat again, meeting friends, visiting grandparents, traveling, experiencing live concerts – simply leading a normal life again,” promise the PR people at the Bavarian State Ministry for Health and Care at Munich’s Ostbahnhof.
Maybe they should put their advertising slogan two kilometers to the west. The Bavarian State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy has its headquarters at Prinzregentenstrasse 28. The host there is Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Hubert Aiwanger from the Free Voters. The 50-year-old has, he has left no doubt in the past few weeks, a medium-sized problem with vaccination – and with this attitude is increasingly becoming a very big problem for CSU Prime Minister Markus Söder and his state government. The conflict over vaccination is heading for an escalation, with an open outcome.
Tensions in the government were exposed by June 29th at the latest. The Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation reported at the beginning of May that Aiwanger had not yet been vaccinated despite the possibility of being vaccinated (“I don’t have to have it at first. I’m not a vaccination opponent, but also not a vaccination euphoric.”), But only Söder brought up the topic Weeks later at a remarkable press conference on the open stage.
When asked by a journalist whether all cabinet members had already been vaccinated, Söder referred to his Minister of Economic Affairs, who was standing next to him: “Perhaps you would say something yourself about why you don’t want to be vaccinated?” The “Münchner Merkur” interpreted this as a public exposure.
Opponents in their own ranks
It was a “personal decision”, said Aiwanger: “I take it up for myself and it is that I have not yet been able to decide to get vaccinated. That does not mean that I will never get vaccinated in general . (…) I also believe we shouldn’t put any public pressure on. “
The tone was set and it became clear: The self-proclaimed “Team Caution” of the Bavarian Prime Minister has an opponent in its own ranks. Can that go well?
Markus Söder sees it, and that is how the state government’s advertising campaign sells it, is by no means a purely private matter, it is about the protection of all people.
“I don’t want to be forced to vaccinate”
But Aiwanger added: “The subject of vaccination must remain a private decision of the individual,” he said, according to the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. It is “an elementary civil right to say that I do not want to be forced to vaccinate.” And he condescended to what many saw as completely inappropriate comparison: “We have to be careful not to get into an apartheid discussion.”
That was the next level of confrontation. Public reprimand on the part of Markus Söder follows the public exposure. Aiwanger made “disturbing statements” that they were inappropriate for a deputy prime minister. The choice of words had to be withdrawn and Aiwanger apologized, demanded the CSU boss at a district party conference. He must have sworn there that the problem is far from being solved.
Aiwanger replied that he felt misunderstood. “I have warned that if we take a rash approach to vaccination policy, we will deliver ammunition to those who oppose vaccination and get involved in an apartheid discussion.” An apology sounds different. And anyway, as soon as these words had faded away, Aiwanger had an appointment for an interview with Deutschlandfunk, where his vaccination skepticism went to extremes. The conversation allows only one conclusion: Aiwanger will “not be vaccinated for the time being”, and he is ready to continue across the line of Markus Söder and his cabinet colleagues.
Figurehead of vaccination skeptics and opponents?
He wanted to wait “until I am convinced myself that it makes more sense for me personally to be vaccinated than not to be vaccinated,” said the head of the Free Voters. He had heard of cases of “massive vaccine side effects” in his environment, but without giving details or examples. There should be no “hunt” for unvaccinated people. “For you. For me. For everyone” becomes a mere “For me” at Aiwanger.
An interview statement made people sit up and take notice and possibly revealed the political strategy behind the “personal decision”: Without his role model, opponents of vaccinations would turn to the political fringes, said Aiwanger. His role model function as deputy prime minister consists in not doing what the “majority and the political establishment” demand of him. He sees himself as the “voice of those who have not yet followed the path”.
The Bavarian Deputy Prime Minister as the figurehead of the vaccine opponents? That cannot be in the interest of the head of government. Markus Söder recently brought Aiwanger into the vicinity of “shamans and conspiracy theorists” in the ZDF talk “Markus Lanz”; some fished in a “milieu that is not appropriate and thus almost calls into question the democratic consensus,” said Söder, without naming his deputy. “Anyone who believes they can ingratiate themselves with right-wing groups and lateral thinkers leaves the middle class and ends up being harmed”, Söder became even clearer in the “Spiegel” afterwards. Aiwanger walk “on a narrow line”. “I’m worried about him.”
Hubert Aiwanger does his thing
And the scolded one? Aiwanger was unimpressed and gave an interview to the “Bild” newspaper: “I was asked about my vaccination status in front of the camera and I am of the opinion that vaccination is an important component of the fight against corona, but still has to remain a personal decision. That has has nothing to do with shamanism or lateral thinking, but is a personal right to freedom. “
Free voter general secretary Susann Enders jumped at his side in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. You condemn “the public bustle and the pressure in the media and through politics” in the vaccination debate. However, critical voices about Aiwanger’s position have recently increased among the Free Voters. The times of the party as a Hubert Aiwanger one-man show are over anyway after several electoral successes.
The maximum confrontation with the coalition partner could even come in handy for Aiwanger. He hopes to move into the Bundestag with the free voters in September and is number one on the Bavarian state list. His vaccination populism and his sowed doubts could make him compatible with certain groups and bring in votes – possibly even at the expense of the CSU. So far, however, the free voters have not played a significant role in the polls.
The CSU is in a much more difficult situation. Since the state elections in October, she has been dependent on a coalition partner in the Free State. Should he hold on to his party leader and vaccination doubter Hubert Aiwanger, who is constantly and publicly damaging a central pillar of the pandemic response, as expected, it is actually difficult to imagine continuing to govern with him. The credibility of Söder’s fight against the pandemic, and thus of the cabinet, is at stake. Is there a showdown?
When does Markus Söder act? Does he even act?
Nobody in the CSU wants unrest before the federal election, especially not Markus Söder. But dissatisfaction with the Aiwanger case is also growing in his party. The attack department in Munich’s Franz-Josef-Strauss-Haus, the party headquarters, has already positioned itself. “He is approaching the circles of AfD and lateral thinkers in a dangerous way – and has to be careful that he does not become a lateral thinker himself,” said General Secretary Markus Blume to Bayerischer Rundfunk. CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt said in the “Augsburger Allgemeine” that he “has no understanding for the fact that he doubts the effectiveness of the approved vaccines and stirs up fear of side effects. I consider irresponsible that he consciously uses the language of lateral thinkers.” . “
In the interests of fighting pandemic, credibility and his party, Söder should actually react clearly. But he leaves it – at least for the time being – with admonitions and distancing himself from the free voter boss. Ultimately, his power would also be at stake if he went to extremes and collapsed the coalition. Although the SPD and the Greens are two potential new coalition partners, the CSU leader would have to sell that to his party first. So Söder recently even made a kind of commitment to the Aiwangers party in “Spiegel”. “The cooperation with free voters in the state government and parliament is excellent, and there is great agreement on vaccination.”
It seems as if Söder wants to sit out the problem in the coalition and hope that the unrest around his deputy will settle again. But Markus Söder wouldn’t be Markus Söder if he didn’t keep a back door open. “Anyone who absolutely does not want to, and I respect that, but then must also take the consistency and responsibility for it,” said the CSU boss recently in general. But the words should also be directed towards Munich’s Prinzregentenstrasse 28.
Swell: ,,,,,,,,,, News agencies DPA and AFP
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