Apparently, no one can avoid Niederbayer Aiwanger among the free voters outside of the Free State either: the party wants to elect him as chairman at the Federal Assembly. Yet again.
Munich/Geiselwind (dpa/lby) - Routine election for Hubert Aiwanger: For the sixth time in a row, the Bavarian Vice Prime Minister wants to be elected Federal Chairman of the Free Voters on Saturday. Since February 2010, the Lower Bavarian, who is also head of the Free Voters in Bavaria and Economics Minister in the Free State, has held the position. His re-election should once again be a mere formality, as always, there are no opposing candidates to be expected, and Aiwanger is basically undisputed within the Free Voters.
In 2019, Aiwanger was re-elected with 93.4 percent of the vote. The result on Saturday should be in the same range. Last year, Aiwanger was also the top candidate of the Free Voters in the federal elections, but in the end the party clearly missed entering the Bundestag.
Aiwanger celebrated his greatest political success in 2018 in the state elections in Bavaria, when the Free Voters achieved the best result in their history with 11.6 percent. Since the CSU lost its absolute majority at the same time, the bourgeois-conservative Free Voters have been members of the state government ever since.
The 51-year-old is an instinctive politician who, especially during the corona pandemic, repeatedly quarreled with Söder and the CSU and called for a more liberal course. The home of the agricultural engineer and father of two is a farm near Rottenburg an der Laaber in Lower Bavaria. The passionate hunter with the strong accent is considered an exception in the state parliament. He also prefers to give long speeches completely without a manuscript, but sometimes loses the thread or rambles further. Even his critics consider him politically gifted - but also a bit of a gifted populist. Within the Free Voters, his opponents accuse him of an egocentric and authoritarian style of leadership.
