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Markus Söder, the premier of the southern German state of Bavaria, has called a Sunday press conference at short notice. He’s scheduled to brief reporters, highly irregularly in predominantly Catholic Bavaria on Sunday, when Germany tends to shut down almost entirely, at 11 a.m. local time in Munich.
The conference is almost certainly, though Söder said only that it was to discuss a “current” issue, designed to address public calls for Söder’s embattled deputy to resign.
Deputy Premier and Economy Minister Hubert Aiwanger came under fire over an antisemitic flyer circulated when he was in high school. His elder brother claimed to be the pamphlet’s author after it surfaced in the media, first attributed to the minister directly, but pressure on Aiwanger has persisted, both because of his potential involvement at some level with the pamphlet and because of other allegations pertaining to his youth.
Söder had requested that he answer 25 questions, which Aiwanger yesterday said he had done. The answers have not been released to the public, neither had the questions.
“I don’t know what the premier thinks, but based on my answers, I see no reason whatsoever to resign or to be released from office,” Aiwanger told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
The minsiter, who’s the leader of Söder’s junior coalition partner — the right-wing Bavaria-only Free Voters (Freie Wähler) — and therefore deputy state premier, is 52 years old and was a secondary school student in the 1980s, northeast of Munich.
Aiwanger apologizes but with caveats, alleges political agenda
Soon after the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper first reported on the issue in August, Aiwanger denied direct responsibility for the flyers. A few hours later, his elder brother Helmut claimed to have been the real author. The two are separated by just a year in age and attended the same school.
But Hubert Aiwanger later admitted that copies of the antisemitic leaflet had been found in his school satchel.
It wasn’t until last Thursday that Aiwanger apologized for potential mistakes in his youth, albeit also repeating that he had no recollection of some of the other allegations he faced, for instance of having been seen conducting a Hitler salute in school. Still, he said he “deeply regretted” if his actions had caused offense.
His apology was “first and foremost to all victims of the Nazi regime, their surviving dependents and all those involved in the valuable remembrance work.”
But Aiwanger still said that the accusations were part of a political campaign against his right-wing Free Voters (Freie Wähler) party, weeks ahead of elections.
Bavaria is set to head to the polls on October 8.
He also said he believed it wasn’t fair to dig up comments from so long ago, and argued that such scandals could put other people off entering politics.
fb/msh (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)
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