New Secretary General: Söder reshuffles cabinet before “fate election for CSU”

CSU General Secretary Markus Blume, District Administrator Christian Bernreiter and former Environment Minister Ulrike Scharf move up to the Bavarian cabinet.

This was announced by Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) on Wednesday after a meeting of the CSU parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament.

He weighed it for a long time and now is a good time for the realignment, which will give the whole party and also the state government a new boost after the pandemic.

The 2023 election is a “fate election for the CSU”.

Local heroes are needed everywhere

Previously, Söder had presented the personal details with the utmost secrecy with a mobile phone ban in the crucial meeting of the CSU parliamentary group.

This also includes the replacement of the CSU general secretary.

The office is to be taken over by Stephan Mayer, a member of the Bundestag and former Secretary of State for the Interior.

The party leader announced that he would make this proposal to the party executive.

Deputy CSU General Secretary is to be Tanja Schorer-Dremel, a member of the state parliament.

Bernreiter becomes the new Minister for Construction and Transport, Blume the new Minister for Science and Art, and Scharf takes on family, work and social affairs.

They replace Kerstin Schreyer, Bernd Sibler and Carolina Trautner, who are leaving the cabinet, as well as State Secretary for the Interior Gerhard Eck.

Eck is succeeded by Sandro Kirchner, member of the state parliament.

Europe Minister Melanie Huml, who was also recently considered a shaky candidate, will keep her post.

intra-party momentum

At 1 p.m. Söder then wants to present his new ministers to the state parliament and have them officially appointed there.

They then have to be sworn in in the plenary session.

Over the past few weeks, there has been repeated speculation behind closed doors and in the media about the reorganization of the Bavarian cabinet.

It had always been said that Söder wanted to wait in any case until the current omicron wave in Bavaria had passed its peak.

With the personnel restructuring, Söder wants to provide new impetus within the party and within the group.

In polls, the CSU is currently around 35 to 36 percent and thus still behind the poor result of the 2018 election.

The state election in about a year and a half is considered a fateful choice for Söder.

If his party then gets another bad result or even loses further shares of the vote compared to the 2018 election (37.2 percent), things are likely to get tight for the franc.

He himself had repeatedly stated that he would no longer reach the absolute majority that the CSU had always aimed for in the past and that the goal was to continue the coalition with the Free Voters.