By Stone Martindale Sep 23, 2007, 18:19 GMT
Bavaria's chic, red-haired motorcyclist who helped bring down state premier Edmund Stoiber, has caused a bit of a kerfluffle in the Catholic state in Germany, by suggesting marriage should last just 7 years.
Gabriele Pauli EPA/ Daniel Karmann
Gabriele Pauli told reporters at the launch of her campaign manifesto on Wednesday she wanted marriage to expire after seven years and accused the CSU, which promotes traditional family values, of promoting unrealistic ideals of marriage.
"The basic approach is wrong ... many marriages last just because people believe they are safe," she told reporters. "My suggestion is that marriages expire after seven years."
After the seven-year mark, options for dissolution or renewal should be available to couples, she noted.
Pauli, 50, with two marriages under her belt, is set to cause some ripples in the male-dominated and mainly Catholic party which has dominated Bavarian politics since World War II.
"This is about bringing ideas into the CSU and starting a discussion," she told German television on Thursday after she had unleashed a wave of criticism from other politicians.
Once her foe, Stoiber said she did not belong in the CSU and European lawmaker Ingo Freidrich also dismissed her views to news outlets.
"She is diametrically contradicting our Christian, ethical values," Freidrich said.
Peter Ramsauer, head of the CSU in Germany's parliament, compared Pauli's ideas to "the dirt under your fingernails".
Pauli was in the middle of a snooping scandal which eventually led to Stoiber, the Bavarian premier for 14 years, announcing he would leave office early.
She said his office has attempted some dirty tricks and scandal hunting from her past.
Pauli's competition is Bavarian state economy minister Erwin Huber and German Consumer Minister Horst Seehofer, who is reeling from his own public scandal of a bastard child outside his established marriage with three children.
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