Do we like them?

Do we like Markus Söder?

Our score: 4 out of 10. Clear on the AfD, but the gendered-language ban drew heavy criticism and our reading was too thin to lift him higher.

Markus Söder is the Minister-President of Bavaria and leads the CSU, the Bavarian sister party of the conservative CDU. He is one of the best-known faces of German conservative politics, and a regular name in talk about who leads the centre-right nationally.

The story that matters most for this page is the language ban. His government banned gender-sensitive spellings, like the asterisk and colon inside words, in Bavarian schools, universities and state offices in 2024, and critics called it dog-whistle politics. The German Teachers' Association welcomed it, while student representatives condemned it as paternalism.

On the harm check, that ban is the clearest mark we found. It does not ban anyone from being who they are, and his side says it is about clear writing, but queer and youth groups said it fuelled hostility. Where you land depends on whether you read it as a style rule or as a culture-war signal.

On the other side of the ledger, he has repeatedly drawn a hard line against the far right. A September 2026 report has him ruling out cooperation with the AfD and calling the Union the only barrier to it winning federal power. That is a real point in his favour, whatever you think of the rest of his platform.

Honest gap: our page fetching was blocked while we researched, so we could not read his migration, climate or welfare positions in full, and we have left them out rather than guess. Nothing we read covers how he treats staff or colleagues, or any charity work. That is why he lands in the middle, not at either end.