The Free Voters are losing their parliamentary group status in Rhineland-Palatinate after resignations. The board members criticize a shift “towards the right-wing fringe”.
Mainz/Munich – There is a mood of crisis among the Free Voters in Rhineland-Palatinate. Party leader Stephan Wefelscheid and two other board members announced their resignation this week. The reason for the resignations was not just internal differences. Wefelscheid’s displeasure goes beyond the state association of Free Voters. “We have a very, very conservative wing,” the party leader explained loudly SWRreport on Wednesday (October 2). Wefelscheid said that he himself was “not the right chairman” for this orientation of the party. The party leader also expressed clear criticism of the federal chairman of the Free Voters – Hubert Aiwanger.
Wefelscheid criticizes Aiwanger’s speech as a “key element” for the negative development of the Free Voters
Loud BRreport blames Wefelscheid Aiwanger for the fact that the Free Voters are said to have moved in a negative direction. The party leader called the federal chairman’s speech in Erding in 2023, in which Aiwanger called for “democracy to be brought back” and spoke of a “silent majority,” a “key element” of the negative development. Politics must stop creating “enemy images everywhere”. Opposite that BR Aiwanger did not comment on the criticism.
In addition, the party leader’s withdrawal is also due to internal disputes. The differences were most recently evident at the party conference in Kordel last Saturday. It was about disputes over direction and personal disagreements. Members of the party said, among other things, that the state leader had an “authoritarian leadership style”.
Crisis mood among the Free Voters – resignations and loss of parliamentary group status in the RLP
In addition to the party leader, state treasurer Marco Degen also announced his retirement on December 31st. Degen’s accusation: There are “attempts to shift the content of the state party out of the middle of society and towards the right edge of the political spectrum.” The state treasurer said about the Free Voters’ party program that it served right-wing nationalist resentments.
With the latest withdrawal announcements, the Free Voters in Rhineland-Palatinate are losing their parliamentary group status in the state parliament, as they no longer meet the requirement of the state parliament’s rules of procedure, according to which a parliamentary group must have at least five members. The parliamentarian Herbert Drumm is leaving the Free Voters faction with immediate effect, as he said German press agency in Mainz said. His parliamentary group colleague Bernhard Alscher had already announced his withdrawal at the state party conference of the Free Voters on Saturday. On Monday he told the dpahe will take this step on October 6th. (pav)
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