Regional Association of Free Voters Bavaria

Regional Association of Free Voters Bavaria
Hubert Aiwanger
Chairman	Hubert Aiwanger
Deputy	Armin Kroder Michael Piazolo Ilse Ertl Ulrike Müller
Secretary General	Susann Enders Felix Locke (Deputy)
Treasurer	Edgar Klüpfel
executive Director	Elisabeth Schnaller, Christoph Hollender
Honorary Chairman	Armin Grein
Establishment date	1997
Headquarters	Giesinger Bahnhofplatz 8 81539 Munich
Landtag mandates	27/205
Number of members	approx. 40,000
Website	www.fw-bayern.de

The regional association of Free Voters Bavaria is the regional association of the Federal Association of Free Voters in Bavaria. It was founded in 1997 as an electoral association from the center of the regional association of free voters , which, as the umbrella organization of electoral groups, was unable to participate in state elections. The state chairman is Hubert Aiwanger , Susann Enders has been the new general secretary since May 2019 , Felix Locke is the deputy general secretary.

profile

Principles

The free voters represent, depending on the topic, partly liberal (strengthening civil and human rights, promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises, public budget discipline), partly conservative (increasing the security forces, fight against drugs), partly socially liberal (state services of general interest, equal opportunities in education, promotion of housing) or ecological - alternative goals (energy policy, water management). This has often brought the free voters the accusation of arbitrariness or populism; they themselves justify their lack of clear integration into the party landscape, however, by pursuing a pragmatic policy that goes beyond ideological stipulations.

Program

The focus of work in Bavarian state politics since 2008 has been education and university policy (abolition of tuition fees and the G8 ), the promotion of renewable energies, the questioning of major projects ( third runway at Munich Airport , Danube expansion , second main line of the Munich S-Bahn ). The positions can be viewed, for example, in issue papers from the parliamentary group or in the guidelines of the regional association for the 2013 state election.

Party politics

The Free Voters emphasize their interest in cross-party cooperation and, according to their own statements, do not require their members of the Bavarian State Parliament to vote in a closed manner (parliamentary group discipline).

After the state elections in 2018, the head of the Free Voters, Aiwanger, told the Augsburger Allgemeine that he wanted the state parliament to have a new way of dealing with things and that he would also maintain “constructive cooperation” with the AfD . Bavaria should be closer to its citizens overall.

organization

According to its statutes, the organs of the regional association are the board of directors, the extended board of directors and the assembly of delegates. The board of the regional association consists of the regional chairman, four equal representatives, the chairman of the "Junge FW Bayern", the treasurer, the legal officer and eight assessors. The association is subdivided regionally into state, district and district associations.

District Association	Chairman
Munich	Michael Piazolo
Middle Franconia	Steffen Schmidt
Lower Bavaria	Heinrich Schmidt
Upper Bavaria	Florian Streibl
Upper Franconia	Manfred Hümmer
Upper Palatinate	Tanja Schweiger
Swabia	Alexander Hold
Lower Franconia	Thomas Zöller

history

In the mid-1990s, the umbrella organization of Free Voters considered the goal of running for the Bavarian State Parliament. Since election proposals according to the Bavarian state election law can only be submitted by political parties and electoral associations, but not by an umbrella organization, members of the municipal electoral groups founded the association FW Free Voters Bavaria e. V. In 2011 it became part of the Free Voters party (federal association) as the state association of Bavaria. According to the statutes, the purpose of the Landesvereinigung FW Bayern is “to participate on the political levels in independent cities, counties, districts, in the state, federal government and Europe” (Article 1 (5)).

Even though the new association decidedly described itself as a group of voters and an "alternative to the parties" and, according to the constitution of the group of voters of June 7, 1997, only accepted non-party citizens as members, it actually moved ahead with its membership, degree of organization, constitution and national political objectives near a party. In 2011, this step was also taken formally: The Free Voter Bavaria e. V. integrated itself on December 15, 2011 as the "Bavarian State Association" into a newly founded, nationwide party "Free Voters". Its establishment had become necessary in order to be able to participate in federal elections. This decision was also very controversial within our own ranks and in the scientific discussion there are voices that see negative repercussions on the local political successes and the self-image of the free voters as an alternative to the established parties free of ideology.

For the first time, the FW competed in the state elections in Bavaria in 1998 and achieved 3.7% there. In the 2003 election , the share of the vote could be increased slightly to 4.0%, but the entry into the state parliament was again missed due to the five percent hurdle . In the state elections in 2008 , the Free Voters finally moved into the state parliament with 10.2% of the vote and 21 seats and are the third strongest force there after the CSU and SPD. In the state elections in 2013 and 2018 , the free voters were able to maintain third place with 9.0% of the votes and 19 seats and 11.6% of the votes and 27 seats. Since 1998, the FW voter group has also participated in the elections for the district days, which take place at the same time as the state elections . Since there is no five percent hurdle here, the free voters moved into several district days. A total of 24 seats were won in the 2008 elections and 21 in 2013.

On November 2, 2018, the CSU and Free Voters announced the formation of a coalition in Bavaria.

Web links

• Official homepage of the Free Voters Bavaria
• Website of the Free Voters Group in the Bavarian State Parliament

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lisa Schnell: Free voters: Susann Enders is the new Secretary General. Retrieved August 26, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Cf. the analysis of the positions of the Federal Association of Free Voters in Ulrich Eith: Ideology-free material politics or populist protest? Free voters at state and federal level. In: Martin Morlok, Thomas Poguntke, Jens Walther (Hrsg.): Politics past the parties. Free voters and municipal voter communities as an alternative. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2012, ISBN 978-3-8329-7052-9 , pp. 147–156, here p. 152.
3. ↑ For the Free Voters in general Torben Lütjen : Beyond Parteilichkeit? On the right of free voters to freedom of ideology. In: Martin Morlok, Thomas Poguntke, Jens Walther (Hrsg.): Politics past the parties. Free voters and municipal voter communities as an alternative. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2012, ISBN 978-3-8329-7052-9 , pp. 157-172.
4. ^ Oskar Niedermayer: Federal Association of FREE VOTERS. In: Federal Center for Political Education (Ed.): Dossier Parties in Germany . April 28, 2012; as well as self-presentation of the FREE VOTERS parliamentary group: https://fw-landtag.de/abteilunge/ .
5. ↑ positions
6. ↑ Guidelines of the regional association for the 2013 state elections (PDF; 440 kB)
7. ↑ http://www.fw-landtag.de/unsere-politik/ ( Memento from November 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
8. ^ So group member Karl Vetter: Vetter on democracy ( memento from February 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), September 14, 2010; see. also FREE VOTERS parliamentary group: table template for the press conference on November 17, 2011: “Fresh wind in the Bavarian parliament:”.
9. ↑ Free voters want coalition with the CSU , augsburger-allgemeine.de October 17, 2018.
10. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: statutes of the state association FREIE WÄHLER Bayern e.V. (PDF; 162 kB) of October 22, 2011 in the version of October 13, 2012. )
11. ↑ Mittelbayerische.de: Free voters are confident . In: Mittelbayerische Zeitung . ( Mittelbayerische.de [accessed on November 19, 2018]).
12. ↑ § 23-24 LWG ( law on state elections, referendums and referendums in the version published on July 5, 2002.
13. ↑ http://www.fw-bayern.de/landesverband/ .
14. ↑ Statutes of the organized voter group (PDF; 414 kB) "FW Free Voters Bavaria eV - FW Free Voters" from June 7, 1997.
15. ↑ For demarcation see Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung: Directions for municipal practice. Elections of the representative bodies (municipal electoral law 4; PDF; 92 kB), January 2001.
16. ↑ HNAl .
17. ↑ www.frei-waehler-deutschland.de .
18. ↑ Ulrich Eith: Ideology-free factual politics or populist protest? Free voters at state and federal level. In: Martin Morlok, Thomas Poguntke, Jens Walther (Hrsg.): Politics past the parties. Free voters and municipal voter communities as an alternative. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2012, ISBN 978-3-8329-7052-9 , pp. 147–156, here pp. 147 f, 154 f.