Regime Change in Bavaria?

Last weekend the former once-and-future ruling party in the German state of Bavaria, the CSU (Christian Social Union, as you might already imagine, a flock of rather conservative notion) lost its election in a landslide and is no longer able to act as sole ruler in the quiet and stable de-facto-one-party-state of Bavaria, where their regime was established in the 1950ies and went on unhindered until last Sunday.
They lost about 17 %, nearly as much as the next biggest party, the SPD (Social Democrats) harvested in total. The CSU still will be able to form a government though, but will need a partner to form a coalition, which is – given the more than slightly absolutist attitude towards their rightful and god-given homestead of Bavaria – a shameful humiliation for Germany`s Grand Ole Party of the South and –of course- a good laugh for the rest of us.

Bavaria, being an independent kingdom until 1871 was grudgingly incorporated into the German empire lead by the Prussians, but has to this day a strong awareness of its own identity and distinctiveness. Local customs are held up to the point of outright tribalism and dialect is widely spoken even by people of higher education, serving as a billet of entry to the core of Bavarian notabilities and economic bigshots.
There is a proverb, which although a cliché, does tend to bundle the complex state of the bavarian mind to one single phrase: “Mir san mir”(We are we).
The CSU has, since the 1950ies, been THE bavarian party, the one party that pledged loyalty to the social conservatism rooted in the catholic faith of Bavarian people, and even more important, claimed successfully to negotiate the hell out of any prussian federal government, whether it be located in Bonn or Berlin. The CSU is in short a party of big, bulky local shopkeepers in lederhosen harboring a firm belief in the free market as long as the very business of that free market is controlled by a bunch of local shopkeepers fighting ironfisted for their own interest. To no one´s surprise really, Bavaria has been doing quite well and prospered throughout the years due to generous funding by Federal and EU-Government, and – to be fair- due to sensible economic politics favouring the middle class, backbone of German and Bavarian economy.
Now this remarkable alliance has come to an end. Still economic data shows a performance above German average, but the honeymoon seems to be over.