Prime Minister Markus Söder points to the failure of the constitutional change he is aiming for. He announced a very late and short election campaign in Bavaria for 2023. The chancellor candidacy is definitely no longer an issue for his “CSU life”.
CSU boss Markus Söder no longer feels bound by his previous initiative to limit the reign of the Bavarian Prime Minister to two terms. “People have other concerns at the moment than thinking about the state elections after next,” said the CSU chairman of the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. Söder referred to the failure of the constitutional amendment for a term limit, introduced by the CSU shortly after he took office in 2018, due to the required two-thirds majority in the state parliament.
“The Greens and the SPD have rejected the offer,” said the Prime Minister. “From this I conclude that the Greens and SPD are of the opinion that I should stay in office longer,” he added ironically. The draft for a constitutional amendment adopted by Söder’s state government at the time stipulated that the re-election of a prime minister after ten years in office would be excluded.
At the same time, Söder emphasized that he would not consider applying again for a chancellor candidacy in the Union. “The topic is closed,” emphasized the Prime Minister. “Such a moment only comes up once in a CSU life, as the history of Franz Josef Strauss and Edmund Stoiber shows,” said the party leader. “To put it in the words of Bavarian Radio: I’m Markus, that’s where I’m at home. And that’s where I’ll stay.”
At the same time, Söder emphasized that the election campaign in Bavaria was a long way off for him given the current crises. “The election campaign should start very late and not last long,” announced Söder. “We have so many challenges to overcome that election debates tend to agonize and hinder. People rightly expect us to take care of their concerns.”
