Markus Söder is a master of disguise. Over the years he has posed as Shrek, Marilyn Monroe, Homer Simpson and Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria. Now he is poised to assume his most dramatic role yet — the Merkel-slayer.
Nominally Angela Merkel’s ally, Mr Söder, prime minister of the southern German state of Bavaria, has emerged as her potential nemesis. His Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of the chancellor’s CDU, turned a row about how to deal with refugees at Germany’s border into a political crisis of such ferocity that it could spell the end of Ms Merkel’s 13-year reign.
Known for his populist, tub-thumping politics, carefully honed media image and extravagant carnival costumes, Mr Söder already dominates Bavaria, Germany’s largest state. The asylum battle is fast turning him into a figure of national importance, too.
“This is the end-game for our credibility [as a party],” he told a meeting of CSU MPs earlier this month. Every day, refugees were committing acts of violence. “People have lost their patience,” he said.
The Bavarian strongman would in all likelihood be happy to see Ms Merkel go. But the main reason he has been so prominent in the immigration dispute — which pits the chancellor against Horst Seehofer, the CSU leader and Germany’s interior minister — lies in October’s regional elections in Bavaria.
[Söder] is a very polarising figure. He is trying to close the CSU’s ranks but he is dividing Bavaria
The CSU has traditionally held an iron grip on the state, enjoying the luxury of governing alone, unfettered by coalition partners. But that exceptional status is now under threat as CSU voters defect in droves to the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany: in last September’s Bundestag elections, the CSU won only 39 per cent of the vote, 10.5 percentage points lower than in 2013.
“Söder is under enormous pressure,” said Florian Post, a Social Democrat MP from the Bavarian capital Munich. “He risks going down in history as the man who lost the CSU’s absolute majority. And he will do anything he can to avoid that happening.”
Ever since he became Bavarian prime minister in March, Mr Söder has been grabbing national headlines.
In April he provoked outrage by decreeing that crosses and crucifixes be hung in official buildings in Bavaria. He has pledged to hire 1,000 more border policeman and set up mounted police units — or “Bavarian cavalry” — in every big city. He has even spoken of launching a Bavarian space programme.
“He is the kind of person who can bring a beer tent to boiling point,” said Werner Weidenfeld, head of the Centre for Applied Policy Research in Munich. “But all Bavarian politicians are a bit like that.”
Born in Nuremberg in 1967, Mr Söder studied law and later trained as a TV journalist — a fact that explains his mastery of visual imagery. He joined the CSU as a teenager and was elected to the Bavarian parliament aged 27. At 36 he was CSU secretary-general, and a regional minister at 40. But that was never enough.
“His goal was to reach the very top of Bavarian politics and he has been working at that for years,” said Mr Weidenfeld. “He has always been highly ambitious.” Mr Söder’s friends nicknamed him “the secretary of state” when he was still in his 20s.
A big obstacle on his path was Mr Seehofer, then Bavarian prime minister. The personal animosity between the two men was an open secret. In 2012, Mr Seehofer accused Mr Söder of “character weaknesses”, “dirty tricks” and being “consumed by ambition”. In the end, Mr Seehofer stood down as prime minister last year, paving the way for his arch rival to take the crown.
Mr Söder remains a controversial figure in the CSU, with many put off by his pursuit of the limelight. He earned brickbats for his forthright criticism of Ms Merkel’s decision, at the height of the refugee crisis in 2015, to keep Germany’s borders open. As tens of thousands of migrants streamed in, he even suggested erecting frontier fences to stop them.
Since then, a steady drumbeat of terror attacks and violent crimes by refugees has fuelled an anti-immigration backlash, helped the AfD in the polls and allowed Mr Söder to feel that he is on the right side of public opinion. The fact that Germany finds it so hard to deport migrants who turn to crime, for example, “just enrages people and make them feel insecure”, he told the ZDF TV channel.
That partly explains why he has been so outspoken in the current crisis. But the negative fallout could harm him. If Ms Merkel — still one of Germany’s most popular politicians — is forced from power, he might get the blame.
“Söder had been trying for a while now to shake off his reputation as a real troublemaker and malcontent, dating from the conflict with Seehofer, and then this new row breaks out,” said Mr Weidenfeld. “That could be really damaging for him. People do not vote for troublemakers.”
Mr Post agreed. “He’s a very polarising figure,” he said. “He is trying to close the CSU’s ranks but he is dividing Bavaria.”
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