Overview
- The Freie Wähler leader, Bavarian economics minister and deputy minister-president Hubert Aiwanger was found dead in a Berlin hotel last Wednesday, and the Berlin public prosecutor said a preliminary autopsy found no evidence of third‑party involvement.
- Tobias Gotthardt, Aiwanger’s state secretary, has assumed kommissarisch (interim) leadership of the ministry under the state government’s rules of procedure.
- The Freie Wähler have opened public condolence arrangements in Munich and postponed their federal party congress that had been scheduled for mid‑November to next year.
- Party and parliamentary officials held private mourning meetings over the weekend and the FW Landtagsfraktion is meeting on Wednesday with a likely vote this week to name a candidate to fill the cabinet post.
- Aiwanger’s death leaves overlapping gaps at state and federal level because he combined the roles of party chief and cabinet minister, and the party faces both a short-term cabinet succession and a longer internal process to select new party leaders.