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DPA
MUNICH
FOR the first time since the Bavarian conservative party Christian Social Union (CSU) saw its support plummet in the polls in regional elections last weekend, party leader Horst Seehofer has suggested he might resign.
"I won't play the scapegoat again. You can criticise me, but to reduce it all to Horst Seehofer and make him responsible for everything, I personally will not play along with that,"Seehofer said on Bavarian television on Sunday.
"Rather, I will make my position as party leader available; I think you can not express it more clearly,"Seehofer, who is also federal interior minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing coalition, said.
Seehofer has come under pressure after his party lost around 10 percentage points in last Sunday's election for the regional parliament in Munich, meaning the CSU lost its absolute majority in the state government.
Three regional divisions of the CSU - in Swabia, Upper Bavaria and Upper Franconia - have called for a special party conference to discuss the future leadership of the party. Three district chapters have already called for Seehofer to be replaced. Seehofer rejects that he is personally responsible for the electoral slump."It's just a simple business: If you can point to another, you do not have to deal with yourself,"he said.
That was the case after the 2017 general election, where the CSU lost 10 seats in the Bundestag in Berlin.
"Although I was not up for election, I was not on any election programme, on no election poster, I was already made the main reason [for the drop in seats] after the federal election,"Seehofer said.
