Citizens for Thuringia Bürger für Thüringen | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Abbreviation | BfTh |
Leader | Steffen Teichmann |
Founded | 2020 |
Dissolved | 2024 |
Merged into | Values Union |
Headquarters | Ilmenau |
Ideology | Syncretic politics |
Political position | Centre-left |
Colours | Purple |
Website | |
https://www.buerger-fuer-thueringen.de/ | |
The Citizens for Thuringia (abbreviation: BfTh) was a political party in Thuringia in Germany between 2020 and 2024. After party defections, it was represented in the Landtag of Thuringia with four seats. The party dissolved in 2024 to join the Values Union. [1] The association of the same name, however, remained in existence.
The Citizens for Thuringia party emerged from the association of the same name, which was founded in March 2020 in connection with the government crisis in Thuringia and campaigned against the resignation of Minister-President of Thuringia Thomas Kemmerich (FDP), who had been elected with votes from the AfD, CDU and FDP. The party was finally founded on 27 November 2020 in the Ringberg Hotel in Suhl with nine members. There were almost no personnel differences between the association and the party. [2] [3]
On 1 September 2021, Ute Bergner , previously a member of the FDP parliamentary group, became a party member and initially represented the party as an individual in the Landtag of Thuringia. [4] In 2022, three former members of the AfD parliamentary group joined the party: Birger Gröning and Tosca Kniese had previously left the AfD because they rejected "hate and incitement" or "disguised racism". [5] They were joined by Lars Schütze who had been expelled from the AfD. [6] [7] In July 2022, the four MPs were recognized as a parliamentary group in the Thuringian state parliament; the formation of a parliamentary group is only possible with five or more MPs. [8] Bergner took over the chairmanship of the group. [9] The group disbanded in December, however, after the party announced that it would expel Gröning and Schütze for "behaviour damaging to the party" and Gröning and Schütze themselves resigned from the party and the state parliament group. [10]
In March 2023, it became known that the dissolved parliamentary group had been reported for alleged embezzlement. The parliamentarians were accused of using state funds of 80,000 euros to procure office supplies from a friendly company without carrying out the required public tender. Party representatives rejected the allegations and, after inspecting the files at the public prosecutor's office, stated that none of the accused were being investigated. [11]
For the 2024 Thuringian state election, Citizens for Thuringia planned to run with a joint list with the association Free Voters Thuringia e. V. (not related to the party Free Voters in Thuringia) and the Thuringian state association of the Grassroots Democratic Party of Germany. [12] On 25 March 2024, it was announced that the Citizens for Thuringia party would dissolve and its members would join the Values Union in order to run together in the state election as part of the Alliance for Thuringia. The Citizens for Thuringia association, however, remained in existence. [1]
Citizens for Thuringia described itself as “ecologically liberal".
The Frankfurter Rundschau classified the party as right-wing.
In 2022, the Thuringian Die Linke accused the party of having collaborated with radical representatives of the Querdenken movement and right-wing extremist individuals. In 2021, texts were found on the party's website in which extremism researchers saw "essential features of conspiracy narratives " aimed at discrediting democratic structures. In addition, the "lateral thinker lawyer" Ralf Ludwig spoke at a Citizens for Thuringia rally. [3] The Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution stated that it was monitoring "(right-wing) extremist individuals in the environment of this party who had influenced the COVID-19 protests in Germany in recent months" for intelligence purposes, but that the party itself was "currently not an object of observation. [3]
Zeulenroda-Triebes is a German town in the district of Greiz in the state of Thuringia.
Bodo Ramelow is a German politician who has served since 4 March 2020 as Minister-President of Thuringia, an office he previously held from 2014 to 5 February 2020. He is the first head of a German state government to serve non-consecutive terms in office since Eberhard Diepgen, who served twice as Governing Mayor of Berlin. A member of The Left, he previously chaired the party's group in the Landtag of Thuringia. On 8 October 2021, he was elected to a one-year term as President of the Bundesrat. His term lasted from 1 November 2021 until 31 October 2022.
The Landtag of Thuringia is the parliament of the German federal state of Thuringia. It convenes in Erfurt and currently consists of 90 members from seven parties. According to the free state's constitution, the primary functions of the Landtag are to pass laws, elect the Minister-President and control the government of Thuringia.
Christian Carius is a German lobbyist and former politician.
The 2014 Thuringian state election was held on 14 September 2014 to elect the members of the 6th Landtag of Thuringia. The government prior to the election was a grand coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democratic Party (SPD) led by Minister-President Christine Lieberknecht. The government narrowly retained its majority. However, the SPD chose not to renew the coalition, instead pursuing an agreement to enter as a junior partner in a coalition with The Left and The Greens. After a vote of the SPD membership showed a majority in favour, the SPD went ahead with the agreement.
Björn Höcke is a German politician and a member of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Along with Andreas Kalbitz, Höcke was the leader of the AfD's far-right Der Flügel faction, which the German government's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution declared a right-wing extremist organization.
Siegfried Rudolf Geißler was a German composer, conductor, hornist and politician. He founded the Thüringen Philharmonie Suhl in 1979. After the Wende, he was a member of the New Forum who was elected to the first Landtag of Thuringia in 1990. As its senior, he was its Father of the House and opened the inaugural session.
The 2019 Thuringian state election was held on 27 October 2019 to elect the members of the 7th Landtag of Thuringia. The outgoing government was a coalition consisting of The Left, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and The Greens, led by Minister-President Bodo Ramelow.
Der Flügel is a far-right faction within Germany's Alternative for Germany, a right-wing populist opposition party. The group was led by Björn Höcke and Andreas Kalbitz. Approximately 20 percent of AfD members are organized also in the "Flügel". Following the request by the AfD executive board to dissolve Der Flügel by the end of April 2020, the group's online presence went offline. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has no reliable knowledge of an actual dissolution. Within the party, Der Flügel now calls itself the "social-patriotic faction".
Thomas Karl Leonard Kemmerich is a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) who served as the Minister-President of Thuringia from 5 February to 4 March 2020. With a tenure of only 28 days, he has been both the shortest-serving Minister-President of Thuringia and the shortest-serving head of a state government in the Federal Republic of Germany.
The next election to the Landtag of Thuringia is scheduled for 1 September 2024.
Christian Hirte is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as member of the German Bundestag since 2008. From 2020 to 2022, he has been the chairman of the CDU in Thuringia and co-deputy Chairman since then.
The 2020 Thuringian government crisis, also known as the Thuringia crisis, was triggered by the election of Thomas Kemmerich (FDP) as Thuringian Minister President with votes from the AfD, CDU and FDP on February 5, 2020. The election attracted considerable national and international attention because, for the first time in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, a Minister President was elected with votes from a far-right populist party, in this case the AfD.
The 2021 Saxony-Anhalt state election was held on 6 June 2021 to elect the 8th Landtag of Saxony-Anhalt. The outgoing government was coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Social Democratic Party (SPD), and The Greens, led by Minister-President Reiner Haseloff.
Susanne Hennig-Wellsow is a German politician. She was federal co-chairwoman of The Left from 2021 to 2022 and has served as a member of the Bundestag for Thuringia since 2021. Previously, she was a member of the Landtag of Thuringia from 2004 to 2021, leader of the Thuringia branch of The Left since November 2013, and leader of the state parliamentary group since December 2014.
Anja Siegesmund is a German politician of Alliance 90/The Greens. Between 2014 and 2023, she served as Minister of the Environment in the state government of Thuringia in the coalition government of Bodo Ramelow. Until 31 January 2023, she was also Second Deputy Minister-President of Thuringia. From 2009 to 2014 she was leader of the Greens parliamentary group in the Landtag of Thuringia. She was a member of the Landtag from 2009 to 2015, then again from 2019 to 2020. In December 2022 she announced her imminent resignation from her political offices; on 1 February 2023 she was succeeded by Bernhard Stengele.
The second Ramelow cabinet is the current state government of Thuringia, sworn in on 4 March 2020 after Bodo Ramelow was elected as Minister-President by the members of the Landtag of Thuringia. It is the 8th Cabinet of Thuringia
Gerd Schuchardt is an electrical engineer who built his career and reputation in East Germany before 1990 in microprocessor technology and related forward-looking branches of science. He was interested in politics, but had avoided involvement in the country's ruling SED (party) or any of the various the various so-called "bloc parties" which it controlled. In January 1990, with the winds of political change - somewhat implausibly, as many still thought at the time - blowing across from the Kremlin in Moscow, the party leaders in East Berlin no longer felt able to stand against domestic pressures for a return to democratic politics after more than half a century of one-party dictatorship. Gerd Schuchardt became an activist member of the re-awakening Social Democratic Party. After reunification in October 1990 state-level democratic politics returned to Thuringia: Schuchardt became a leading figure in Thuringian state politics, selected by party members as the Social Democratic Party's lead candidate in the 1994 Thuringian state election. He led his party to what turned out to be its best electoral result in Thuringia to date. In the resulting "Grand coalition" government that ensued he served as vice-minister-president until 1999 under the leadership of Bernhard Vogel (CDU) and as Minister for the Sciences, Research and the Arts.
Alliance for Thuringia was an electoral alliance for the 2024 Thuringian state election.
Franka Hitzing is a German politician (FDP). She was a member of the Thuringian State Parliament from 2009 to 2014 and served as the state chairwoman of the FDP Thuringia from 2014 to 2015.