By Soren S. Sgries
Heidelberg/Stuttgart. Should he have resisted this temptation? It’s a sunny morning in late April. Finance Minister Danyal Bayaz is on a major tour of Heidelberg Castle. Current stop: the renovated “Gläserne Saalbau”. Elector Friedrich II was once able to look at himself in “Venetian mirror glass” here. Today, a modern distorting mirror designed by artist Jürgen Goertz entices people to admire themselves.
“My old Nokia!” Bayaz enthusiastically drives over an ornament in the frame – and pulls out his modern smartphone. Selfie time! A good example of the young star in the cabinet caring too much about his Instagram account, like hateful voices whispering in Stuttgart?
In fact, ultimately neither will the 19,000 people who @DerDanyal on Twitter, nor the more than 8700 followers of @real.danyal got to see this snapshot of the minister’s cell phone on Instagram. But the mere fact that he could reach so many people through his accounts is one of the reasons why Bayaz is viewed with envy in the mostly tranquil Stuttgart political scene.
Since the 38-year-old was surprisingly appointed by the Green Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann a year ago, the finance minister has been in the public eye like few of his cabinet colleagues. On the one hand, of course, this is due to the media reporting. The story of the political riser, son of a German-Turkish family, is not only fascinating in his hometown of Heidelberg. Especially since he was immediately chosen as a potential Kretschmann successor. But more on that later.
On the other hand, Bayaz has earned the notoriety he enjoys through his political style: he appears on social media as a matter of course, hosts an audio podcast, posts photos, videos and reading tips. “It’s important to be visible to younger people even as a minister,” he says. The corresponding channels would also have to be recorded. Especially since he can be quite sure that if he makes political statements on Twitter, it will resonate in the newspaper columns.
In his party, this is registered with great benevolence. “Hardly any minister manages to present finances as vividly as Danyal Bayaz,” enthuses Green Party leader Pascal Haggenmüller (33). “He manages to breathe new life into a rather dull ministry.” And the minister himself made it clear in an interview with the RNZ: Yes, for him politics naturally also takes place in pictures. “But I don’t ask myself the question: Where are there good pictures – and that’s where it goes.” Palaces and gardens or the “Wilhelma” zoo are officially part of his area of responsibility, so he can and must show up there in person from time to time. “But the bread-and-butter business is the budget, negotiations, talks about financial and tax policy,” says Bayaz. That takes place behind closed doors.
The name and recognizability of the offspring are also protected – the son with the Bavarian Green parliamentary group leader Katharina Schulze (36) was born in June 2021. “But sometimes there’s a pram in the picture, that’s just the reality,” says Bayaz. “To hide our child completely, that would also be artificial.”
Does he like the new job? “It was an intense year, a jump in at the deep end,” he says. But after the first adjustment – out of the opposition role, into the “file culture” of a ministry – he is now convinced: “That’s exactly my department. That’s exactly my thing, that fulfills me.” Especially since the professional past as a management consultant offers a good basis when balance sheets or economic reports end up on the minister’s desk, when he is “in conversation with CEOs, CFOs and supervisory board members”. From time to time Bayaz still sounds as if he has to convince customers for the “Boston Consulting Group”.
As hard he felt the attacks, which he because of his tax fraud portals was exposed. “We simply digitized an analogue process. I didn’t expect it to be so skewered by the tabloids,” he still shakes his head today. “You need a thick skin for this job.”
The criticism of his first supplementary budget, which the opposition called unconstitutional, seems harmless in comparison. It was about remaining able to act in the long term, he defends the decision to authorize another loan. Especially since others later had to act in a similar way: “If you look at what the finance minister is presenting this year, a budget with record debt, you would never have let a red or green finance minister get away with it,” says Bayaz.
He is currently on the road again as a reminder before the next double budget. “The storm clouds in the economic sky are making me very worried,” he says, looking at the gloomy economic forecasts, inflation, commodity prices, and shaky supply chains. “It’s a toxic mixture.” Nevertheless, he does not want to call for an “austerity budget” – he prefers to speak of a “focused budget”. “The scope has just become smaller.”
If Bayaz continues to prove himself, it is speculated that he could actually be one of the contenders for the top candidate in 2026. In fact, the nomination of the member of parliament last spring was also seen as Kretschmann’s move to shake up parliamentary group leader Andreas Schwarz (42). “Like two young dogs” Bayaz and Schwarz competed for the favor of the state father, an experienced state politician scoffed shortly afterwards.
2026 to Villa Reitzenstein? Would that be something? “My family situation doesn’t exactly call for me to make the calendar even fuller,” Bayaz evades. And first of all there are state elections in Bavaria anyway.
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