Bavarian State Parliament: Bavaria: CSU and Free Voters reject Aiwanger’s dismissal

After the controversial statements made by Bavaria’s Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters) at a rally, the CSU and Free Voters rejected a dismissal demand by the opposition. On Wednesday evening, the coalition factions voted unanimously against a motion by the Greens in the state parliament, with which they had demanded Aiwanger’s expulsion – because of “blunders that are incompatible with democratic principles”.

At the rally on Saturday against the federal government’s heating law, Aiwanger said in front of 13,000 people that people had to “take back democracy”. He was sharply criticized across parties for this sentence, which was reminiscent of the well-known AfD choice of words. The CSU had also reprimanded Aiwanger, publicly and internally in a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. In the state parliament, however, the coalition factions were now close together again. Both want to continue their alliance after the October 8 election.

Thomas Gehring (Greens) had previously argued in the debate that Aiwanger had not crossed a red line for the first time. The statement by the Free Voters chief was “deeply wrong and undemocratic” – and Aiwanger has still not apologized for it. The parliamentary manager of the Free Voters, Fabian Mehring, defended Aiwanger: The criticism was a “storm in a teacup”, a “political show” to distract from one’s own failure.

There had already been a heated argument and turbulent war of words in the state parliament during a debate lasting several hours about a government statement by Aiwanger in the afternoon. Aiwanger did not repeat his much criticized sentence. But he also did not respond to the broad criticism of it, including from his own coalition partner, the CSU.