Thurmansbang (dpa/lby) - Free voter boss Hubert Aiwanger continues to see his party as a guarantor for a middle-class government in the Free State. "Without us, we would have black and green in Bavaria," said the deputy prime minister on Friday at the epiphany meeting of free voters in Thurmansbang, Lower Bavaria. "With that, ordinary people would be confronted with more and more prohibitions and nonsense would get the upper hand," he said. Referring to the New Year's Eve riots in Berlin, he added: "You can see what happens when red-green rule in Berlin, where criminal groups in lawless areas are laying the city to rubble."

Aiwanger, who is campaigning for a continuation of the coalition with the CSU, sees the Free Voters as a "necessary corrective" in the government: "We are the drivers on many issues, in energy policy, local politics, SME policy, education policy."

A new state parliament will be elected in Bavaria on October 8th. According to all current polls, the incumbent coalition of the CSU and Free Voters can continue to count on a comfortable majority.