Germany Pact
The Germany Pact was an electoral alliance concluded in 2005 between the NPD and the DVU . It was sometimes referred to as the right-wing “popular front”. In 2009 the German Pact was dissolved by the NPD through their participation in the state elections in Brandenburg . This step was justified with the poor performance of the DVU in the European elections in the same year .
History and design
Electoral agreements between the NPD and DVU were not new. As early as 1987, when the DVU was founded, it agreed with the NPD not to run in some elections. In Bremen she succeeded for the first time in the state parliament with a member. In 1991 the DVU then moved in with a parliamentary group of six members. Among them were two members of the NPD who had stood for candidates on the DVU lists. There were also occasional electoral agreements between the DVU and the Republicans. One of these agreements concerned the state elections in Brandenburg in 1999 , which ended with the DVU entering the state parliament.
As early as spring 2004, the party executive of the NPD and the DVU announced that their parties in the state elections in Saxony and Brandenburg did not want to take away on 19 September 2004 by competing lists each vote, so the five-percent hurdle skip can. As a result, the DVU in Brandenburg gained 6.1% of the vote and moved into the Brandenburg state parliament with six seats , while the NPD in Saxony achieved 9.2% and moved into the Saxon state parliament with twelve members . This was the greatest success of the NPD since 1968 and the first entry into a state parliament since then.
On January 15, 2005, party leaders Gerhard Frey (DVU) and Udo Voigt (NPD) announced the German Pact, with which they agreed not to run in competition. Members of the non-running party should provide campaign support and, in return, should be included in the candidacy on open lists . The addressees of the two parties could be viewed as differentiated, as the NPD tended to address younger and actionist people, the DVU tended to appeal to older and nationally conservative people.
In the pact, territories and thus elections were initially allocated to certain parties until 2009. According to this, the DVU should run for the European elections as well as in Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, but in return, in all further elections, especially the Bundestag elections, give the NPD the right of way if it wanted to run.
Alliance election results
After the German Pact was declared, the parties involved were able to improve their election results in most cases. In state elections, however, the results achieved fell short of the high expectations fueled by the successes in 2004. In the state election in Schleswig-Holstein in 2005, only 1.9 % of the votes cast were achieved by the NPD , in the state election in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2005 only 0.9% and in the federal election in 2005 only 1.6%.
However, additional seats were won, especially in local elections. In 2006, the NPD made it into the state parliament there for the first time with 7.3% in the state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . In other state elections, the gains were never enough for entry into parliament.
Further development of the alliance
Involvement of other parties
DSU and The Republicans refused to join from the start. Both parties tried to gain a civic reputation and did not want to be branded as right-wing extremists. The German Party (DP), with only a few hundred members , joined the pact in the founding year. However, it was not allotted any state parliament elections, only local elections.
End of the pact 2008/2009
The content of the Germany Pact was also controversial in the NPD. At the NPD party congress in Bamberg in 2008, the party leadership under Udo Voigt came under increasing pressure to renegotiate the agreement. Specifically, contrary to the original agreement, the DVU should leave the state elections in Thuringia in 2009 to the NPD . The federal party conference of the DVU approved this demand in January 2009. In June 2009, the National Board of the NPD also decided to run for the state elections in Brandenburg in 2009 . The DVU, who had been competing there so far, should be offered list places, but the candidacy should be under the leadership and the name of the NPD. This contradicted the Germany Pact. Both parties then ran both in Brandenburg and in the Bundestag elections that took place on the same day, which dissolved the German Pact.
Desired party merger
In 2010, merger talks between the NPD and DVU took place. At its party congress in Hohenmölsen in November 2010, the NPD decided to unite with the DVU. 194 of 207 delegates voted for the planned merger with the German People's Union (DVU) at the turn of the year. This should decide at a party congress on November 28, 2010. A ballot should then be held between the members of both parties. The new party should be called NPD - The People's Union . Due to internal party conflicts between groups and regional associations of the DVU, the NPD was renamed, but not a formal merger. Ultimately, the party was dissolved after most of the DVU members converted to the NPD. The NPD is therefore not their legal successor.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b NPD marches, DVU applauds taz.de on January 17, 2005
- ↑ a b c Strategies of the extreme right: Background - Analyzes - Answers published by Springerverlag, 2009; edited by Stephan Braun, Alexander Geisler and Martin Gerster
- ^ "Germany Pact " by NPD and DVU at the end of tagesschau.de on June 27, 2009
- ↑ Saxony / Brandenburg: Election successes of right-wing extremist parties ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. www.migration-info.de on October 28, 2004
- ^ End of the national popular front heise.de on June 30, 2009
- ↑ Party conference in Bamberg: Bad balance brings NPD boss into distress Spiegel online on May 23, 2008.
- ↑ "National Democratic Party of Germany" (NPD) / "Young National Democrats" (JN) ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Protection of the constitution against right-wing extremism
- ↑ NPD resolves to merge with DVU Spiegel online on November 6, 2010
- ↑ Defeat in court: Bundestag administration has to pay NPD 50,000 euros Spiegel online on August 16, 2012
