The Guardian: Bavaria election: Merkel's conservative allies humiliated

Among the main victors was the environmental, pro-immigration Green party, which as predicted almost doubled its voter share to 17.5% at the expense of the Social Democratic party (SPD), which lost its position as the second-biggest party, with support halving to 9.7%. [...]

The Free Voters, a regional protest party, is also likely to enter parliament, having secured a historic 11.6%. Its leader, Hubert Aiwanger, said shortly after the result that he had called the CSU leadership to start coalition negotiations. [...]

Merkel did not react to the results, but the CDU’s general secretary, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, called them “bitter … but not surprising”, citing the governmental infighting of recent months. She said the party would urgently consult before a state election in Hesse in two weeks’ time. “We need to address the issues which are burning under people’s fingernails,” she added. [...]

But in the weeks running up to the election, successive polls showed the CSU’s hardline stance and its near-success in causing the government’s collapse had prompted a haemorrhaging of voters to other parties.

read the article

Politico: The man who lost Bavaria

Barring a minor miracle, Söder’s Christian Social Union, which has dominated Bavarian politics for decades, will suffer an epic thrashing in state elections on Sunday. Recent polls put the CSU at just 33 percent, nearly one-third below where it finished five years ago. [...]

There’s some truth to Söder’s argument that the CSU’s troubles reflect the reality of the age of populism, in which old standards for measuring political success and failure no longer apply. But that’s only part of the story. More than anything, Bavaria’s politics have been upended by a groundswell of popular dismay over the party’s handling of the migration crisis. [...]

At the same time, the CSU’s aggressive rhetoric on migration has disenchanted its liberal supporters, many of whom have fled to the Greens. The latest polls put the AfD, which is running in its first Bavarian election, as high as 14 percent, while the Greens are expected to finish second with 18 percent, more than double their last showing. [...]

Given that the CSU’s sway on the national stage rests solely on its strength at home, a drop of support for it in Bavaria could make the party, already a difficult partner, even more unpredictable. For decades, the CSU has sold itself at home by arguing that it alone can ensure Bavaria can influence national politics, a claim the migration crisis has shown to be exaggerated. [...]

While there’s no doubt that Seehofer — whose clashes with Merkel over migration this summer nearly brought down the government — bears much of the blame for the CSU’s image problem, whether Söder can survive is another question. His biggest selling point may be that most Bavarians can’t think of a better alternative.

read the article

Deutsche Welle: Germany: Thousands gather in Munich to protest Bavarian ruling party CSU

The demonstration follows a large protest in the Bavarian capital on May 5, where at least 30,000 people filled Odeonplatz square to express their rejection of a controversial legislative package put forth by the CSU that sought to widen police powers.

Officials put the attendance of Sunday's anti-CSU rally at 15,000, with organizers saying that 18,000 showed up, despite the unrelenting rain in Munich. Protesters singled out CSU leaders Horst Seehofer and Markus Söder as instigators of an "irresponsible politics of division" at the national and regional levels respectively. Demonstrators also spoke out against CSU parliamentary party leader Alexander Dobrindt.

Organizers of the rally wanted to emphasize that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was not the only political organization that in their eyes promotes a politics of "exclusion and hate." Protesters were called on by organizers to put the spotlight on "a massive societal shift to the right, the surveillance state, [and] the restriction of freedoms and attacks on human rights" that they see as inherent to CSU policies.

read the article

Jacobin Magazine: Germany’s Governmental Crisis

In this sense, everything is at stake, as the party’s strength is increasingly challenged from the right by the Alternative for Germany (AfD), whose positions and members run the gamut from right-wing populist to outright fascist. Why, indeed, should anti-immigration voters support the CSU when a louder law-and-order, anti-immigration party is available?

For this same reason, leading figures in the CSU are practically competing with one another to prove who is more authoritarian, as Bavarian minister president Markus Söder mandates crucifixes in all public buildings and introduces a draconian new police law that has been widely criticized from various sectors of civil society.

After initial hesitation, the Social Democrats also agreed, after removing some of the agreement’s most draconian wording. Germany, it seems, will close itself off and build refugee camps. Austrian chancellor Kurz responded by announcing his intention to better “protect” Austria’s southern border — thereby shifting the border even further south and leaving it up to Matteo Salvini to decide what will happen to refugees in the Mediterranean. [...]

After all, the “migration question,” which she has styled the “question of the fate the European Union”, is really a question of the EU and its economic strength in global competition. Will multilateralism continue to prevail, or are we witnessing a return to unilateralism and strong nation-states? Katrin Göring-Eckardt of the Greens sounded quite similar to Nahles and Merkel when she observed that if the “end of multilateralism” is up for discussion, then “everything is at stake.” [...]

For the CSU, all that matters is Bavaria. The party, appealing to Bavaria’s Texas-like self-image as a culturally unique and independent state in Germany, does not contest elections anywhere else and is generally to the right of the CDU. In order to save its own regional skin, it may at some point prove more opportune to cut loose from the CDU and focus on maintaining its hegemony over Bavaria, leaving Merkel to govern with other mainstream parties or call snap elections.

read the article

Spiegel: Inside the Battle that Almost Brought Down Merkel

Perhaps it made sense. It may even have been the only bit of honesty seen in Berlin during these crazy days of dispute. How, after all, should the two find their way back to each other after the depth of their feud? Seehofer is obsessed with Angela Merkel, and he won't back down until she is no longer there. Indeed, it might have been better were both of them to step down and clear the way for a new political era. The current partnership between the CSU and CDU, in any case, isn't likely to work for as long as Merkel and Seehofer have to find agreement on all the important issues. It isn't likely to work for as long as the two are chained together like an unhappy married couple.

Merkel has retained the ability to keep her cool, concealing her fury behind her political authority - such as when, in her first speech in parliament following her most recent reelection, she indirectly admonished Seehofer for his assertion that Islam does not belong to Germany. Seehofer sat there on the cabinet benches looking like a sheepish schoolboy. [...]

Yet despite frequently being at loggerheads, Kohl and Strauss ultimately pursued the same brand of conservatism. Merkel and Seehofer, by contrast, aren't just divided by a long history of indignities inflicted on each other - a history which has made it almost impossible for the pair to hold open, face-to-face discussions - but they also pursue two completely different political strategies. That is what has made the situation so difficult. [...]

Initially, only Seehofer supporters take the floor, encouraging him to remain steadfast. Several CSU members of the federal parliament argue in favor of a vote among CSU lawmakers, a group which doesn't always support Seehofer's style, but do support his positions. Only toward the end of the debate do critics of Seehofer's confrontational strategy take the floor. Former party head Erwin Huber issues a reminder of the responsibility the CSU bears while Development Minister Gerd Müller warns that if things go badly, the CSU could end up being merely a meaningless regional party. Deputy party head Manfred Weber praises Merkel's accomplishments on the European stage.

read the article  

Spiegel: Increasing Headwinds for Angela Merkel

Merkel's leadership is currently being questioned on all sides, with adversaries and potential rivals flooding out of the woodwork. U.S. President Donald Trump is seeking to rein in Germany's economic power, French President Emmanuel Macron is backing her into a corner with his vision of a reformed Europe and back home, the SPD is hardly able to focus on governing, as concerned as it is about its own survival. On Wednesday in parliament, when Merkel took questions from German lawmakers, the Social Democrats were more aggressive in their stance toward the chancellor than some members of the opposition. [...]

Merkel's favored strategy of waiting and watching seems to have outlived its usefulness. Her ability to take into account the interests of all and to forge a compromise no longer works because she no longer has the elbow room she once did: In Berlin, she is trapped in the coalition with the SPD; in Brussels, she is hemmed in by incompatible interests; and on refugee policy, she is a prisoner of her own past. [...]

Trump has identified Merkel as one of his primary adversaries on the world stage. He watched as she got the better of one male world leader after the other - and he wants to put an end to it. He is no longer willing to provide the discounted security that he believes Germany continues to enjoy thanks to America's military might. He wants to slow down Germany's export machine and dictate to Berlin from whom it should purchase its natural gas. And Merkel still has not found a way to dissuade Trump from pursuing his crusade. [...]

Merkel's opponents, both in Germany and abroad, are closing ranks. On Wednesday evening, Marcus Söder, the governor of Bavaria and certainly not a fervent Merkel supporter, held an event in the Antiquarium in the Munich Residence, one of the most important examples of the Renaissance in Germany. Kurz, who ended Merkel's open border policy in early 2016 by closing down the Balkan Route against the German chancellor's will, was also there.

read the article

The Guardian: After Ireland’s abortion vote, where does the Catholic church go now?

Many people connected the referendum result in Ireland to the sex abuse scandals that have beset the church there in recent years and caused a loss of authority. While the scandals hastened an end to Catholic Ireland, it is not so clear that they caused it. Rather, it is Ireland’s reinvention of itself that led to this result. When the taioseach, Leo Varadkar, described the referendum result as a “quiet revolution”, he was borrowing a phrase first used about the province of Quebec. It, too, was once devoutly Catholic; it, too, has become remarkably secular in recent times. Both places have a history of being suppressed by the English. Quebec’s people once held on to their French tongue and heritage and their Catholic faith as expressions of being Québécois. But as Quebec province gained more autonomy and the Canadian government gave French equal status with English as the official language, so Catholicism became less prominent a part of Quebec’s identity. In Ireland, as relations with Britain improved, and the Troubles over the border waned, so the need to cleave to the church as part of Irish identity has declined.

For the Vatican, this severing of cultural ties may be at its most dramatic in Ireland and Quebec, but there has been decline in its power and influence elsewhere, particularly in western Europe. Last week, even in strongly Catholic Portugal, parliament voted to reject euthanasia – again opposed by the Catholic church – by a mere five votes. Personal morality and church teaching have been issues for Catholics since Pope Paul VI published his encyclical, Humanae Vitae, in July 1968, which banned artificial birth control. Many Catholics rejected such papal interference in the bedroom. Fifty years on from Humanae Vitae, Paul VI is to be made a saint. [...]

Much of that antipathy is due to the vast numbers of migrants and refugees, including Muslims, flocking across the Mediterranean from Africa and the Middle East. While Pope Francis has long spoken up for refugees – and took a refugee family of Muslims home to Rome with him after a visit to Lesbos in 2016 – his denunciation of what he calls the “globalisation of indifference” to the plight of desperate people has often been ignored. Instead, in many Catholic places, conservative politicians have suggested that migrants, especially Muslims, are a threat to traditional culture. In staunchly Catholic Poland, the Law and Justice party-led government has denied settlement to Muslim refugees, while Bavaria’s premier, Markus Söder, has decreed that the Christian cross should be erected at the entrance of all public buildings to reinforce Christian identity following the arrival of Muslim migrants. Catholic bishops have expressed strong disquiet about it.

read the artcile

The Guardian: Can Catholic crosses keep the far right at bay in multicultural Bavaria?

But Bavaria is different. Different from the rest of Germany, and from the ex-Communist countries to its east and south-east. It is the only German state to have been ruled by one party – the Christian Social Union (CSU) – since the Federal Republic was founded in 1949. The CSU has an agreement with the Christian Democrats (CDU) not to poach on one another’s turf. This has allowed the CSU to pander to Bavaria’s rural and conservative population in a way that the more inclusive CDU could never dare. At the same time, the business-friendly CSU has transformed Bavaria from an agricultural poorhouse into an industrial powerhouse – think BMW and Audi, Siemens and Bosch, biotech, AI and financial services. “Laptop and lederhosen” is how the Bavarians – who enjoy Germany’s lowest unemployment rate and highest incomes – describe the CSU’s mix of folksy populism and determined modernisation. [...]

He could be wrong. Under Pope Francis, the Vatican is no longer the conservative bastion it was under John Paul II and the Bavarian Benedict XVI. Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich, who heads the Conference of German Bishops, has criticised Söder for trying to instrumentalise a religious symbol for political aims. More to the point, Bavaria’s modernisation has meant that the once backward and priest-ridden society is now better educated, and that Catholics, though still the majority, are more independent of the church. Few Catholic voters will be swayed by church leaders who condemn the AfD, still less politicians who hang up crosses in job centres.

Meanwhile, Bavaria is becoming ever more multicultural. Almost a quarter of the population have what Germans call “a migration background”. And for the first time since the war, more people are leaving Bavaria for other parts of Germany than the other way around. The most popular destination for Bavarians is Berlin – the epitome of decadence and religious indifference, not to mention multiculturalism and everything Bavaria is not supposed to be. Trying to bridge the chasm between a globalist, liberal elite and the rising number of the disaffected and disenchanted, Söder is more to be pitied than censured for his crucifix gambit.

read the article

Spiegel: Religious Symbols Take Center Stage

But now, that insulation appears to be crumbling. And religion, something that had long since seemed to have lost its importance in Germany, is at the forefront. Once again, religions are playing a powerful role in the world - and it is a development that is making itself felt in even the most bucolic of German neighborhoods.

The result is that any discussion about the Germany of today must necessarily consider the kippah, the cross and the headscarf. They are all symbols of religion at first glance, but upon deeper reflection, they are also symbols of this country's identity. Or at least its search for identity. [...]

The murder of Europe's Jews was the ultimate taboo. Those who question this taboo fall outside the scope of what is acceptable to society. This also applies to the country's right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. When Björn Höcke, the head of the AfD state chapter in Thuringia, said in January 2017 that the Holocaust memorial in Berlin was a "monument of shame" and encouraged Germans to focus less on their war guilt, it caused lasting damage to his stature within the party.

But can we demand that immigrants from foreign countries also adopt this significant element of Germany's cultural identity? What connection, after all, does the father of a Muslim immigrant family in Germany have to the Holocaust? Why should he send his children on a trip to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp? To most of the 5 million Muslims living in Germany, the Holocaust is a crime that was committed by others. [...]

The historic year of 1968 could never have come about without all of the historic years that preceded it: the years 1933 and 1945, the Nazi crimes and the Holocaust. Those who speak of the Judeo-Christian culture today cannot credibly do so without explicitly acknowledging the anti-Semitic pogroms and slaughter of the Jews over the course of centuries. Indeed, those who speak of Europe's Judeo-Christian tradition do so because excluding Judaism from the history of European civilization, particularly since Auschwitz, is simply unacceptable.  

read the article

Politico: Angela Merkel’s ticking Bavarian time bomb

But the Bavarians have an election for the state assembly coming next fall, which ultimately matters more to them than national politics. For that campaign, CSU leaders are convinced the party has to reassert its die-hard conservative credentials — just as Merkel will be trying to establish and lead a coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) in Berlin, which will inevitably mean tacking to the center.

CSU officials worry such a course at the national level could harm their new champion, Markus Söder, who will take over from Seehofer as Bavarian state premier early next year and lead the campaign to defend the party’s absolute majority in the state assembly. [...]

At the party conference, Söder, who is currently Bavaria’s finance minister, gave a foretaste of his campaign, taking aim at left-leaning newspapers and “champagne drinkers,” and striking a tone that seemed designed to win back voters from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).  “Our world is occidental-Christian, Jewish-humanistic,” he declared.

“Islam has not made an outstanding contribution to Bavaria in the last 200 years and now we have to be clear about the roots of our own land.”

read the article

Politico: Seehofer to quit as Bavarian premier to end power struggle

Seehofer’s decision leaves open the possibility that he could become a minister in the next German government. Asked about that prospect on Monday, he replied: “First we’ll see which ministries are available for the CSU, then we’ll see what faces come into question for them.” [...]

Seehofer reportedly told CSU members that he and Söder have a good working relationship — a sign that he backed the finance minister as his successor, even though Söder is a polarizing figure within the party and the two have long have been seen as enemies. [...]

Earlier this year, Seehofer indicated that he planned to continue both as Bavarian premier and CSU leader after the 2018 state election. However, the CSU’s poor performance in September’s German general election — the party won 39 percent of the vote in Bavaria, a 10-point drop from four years earlier — prompted questions about his leadership.

The party is anxious to retain its absolute majority in the Bavarian state parliament and fend off electoral challenges from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Critics charged that Seehofer hewed too closely to Merkel’s centrist policies during Germany’s refugee crisis, ceding political ground to the strongly anti-immigration AfD. Most CSU members tend to be considerably further right on the issue than Merkel.

read the article