CSU is said to have stolen election posters – “The Party” files a complaint

Missing or damaged election posters are a nuisance for all political parties. In addition to the labor that members put into distributing and setting up the signs, there is often financial damage associated with the loss. Not to mention the lack of political impact of the posters if they cannot be noticed by any voter – at least temporarily. A very unusual case of lost election posters occurred in Munich. As members of the party “The Party” report, displays that they had placed in front of the CSU headquarters in Munich reappeared shortly afterwards inside the building. What happened there?

Chairman Martin Sonneborn writes in a post on Instagram about his party’s posters that “several copies disappeared twice in a row in Munich directly in front of the CSU headquarters.” There are two motifs on which Friedrich Merz is depicted. The chairman of the CSU’s sister party, the CDU, is shown with the slogans “If you order Trump from Wish” and “blackrockmatters”.

Wish is a platform for discount items. Merz is portrayed as a kind of cheap version of Trump. Blackrock, in turn, is an asset management company and a former employer of Friedrich Merz. Based on the slogan “Black Lives Matter”, the Union’s candidate for chancellor is virtually assumed to be that the true intention of his work is the well-being of predominantly rich people.

At some point, “The Party” got tired of stealing posters and hid small GPS trackers in them. “Great astonishment” followed, as Sonneborn said star confirmed, because “the GPS data located the stolen goods directly at the CSU headquarters.” In addition, “the theft was also filmed by a passerby on his cell phone.” As proof, “The Party” also published a screenshot of the tracker app, which shows the location of the posters.

Some time after the first reports of the poster theft, the signs were moved again on Thursday morning. Bavaria’s “The Party” state spokeswoman Anna Bauer confirmed this starthat at “10:34 a.m. there was movement and the posters were taken to the opposite side of the street, where they could then be found.”

If CSU members took down the posters and temporarily deposited them in their party headquarters, they could have committed a criminal offense for theft or possibly damage to property. “Advertisement is out! (File number BY8547-501230-2518),” writes Sonneborn on Instagram. An editor at the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” also confirmed in a comment to the article that an advertisement had actually been made. The CSU in Munich, however, agreed star upon request, she said she had “no information on the matter.”

According to the “Süddeutscher Zeitung”, the state security department of the Munich police is now processing the complaint. “We are examining how the hanging of the posters should be assessed under criminal law,” a spokesman told the paper. The possible penalty ranges from a fine to a prison sentence of up to five years.

However, the Christian Socialists themselves also see the phenomenon of poster theft as fundamentally regrettable and complain about the “CSU posters that are destroyed and stolen every day”.