When Angelika Selbmann explains how it comes about that she runs as a direct candidate in the federal election, she says: “That was actually never my goal, somehow I rushed into it.” By that she only means her application to the west of Munich, her political commitment is well thought out and a matter close to her heart. To protect animal welfare, she first stood on demos with a sign.
That didn’t seem to have any effect on her, so the now 57-year-old employee at the Klinikum rechts der Isar thought to herself: “Gosh, girl, join a party.” The party for change, vegetarians and vegans (V-Party³) looked more sympathetic than that of the Animal Welfare Party, and because it could not and did not want to stop at membership, it is now running in the federal elections.
The focus is usually only on applicants from the large and small, but still well-known parties. But the field of candidates in Munich is much more colorful. A total of 65 women and men are running in the four constituencies in order to create a direct entry into the Bundestag.
Many of them had to collect signatures for this, 50 provided for by the federal electoral law. According to the election office in Munich, three candidates did not make it. This published the list of admitted applicants on Monday: 18 in the north, 17 in the east, 13 in the south and 17 in the west. Among them are the proposals of the parties that sit in the Bundestag, of established parties like the ÖDP, which are not represented in Berlin, and also relatively new ones like Volt. And, of course, so many who turn their purpose in life into politics or vice versa.
The Todenhöfer team wants a new style of politics
If you go through the list, you even end up with a candidate for chancellor whose name many have heard. Jürgen Todenhöfer, from 1972 to 1990 member of the Bundestag for the CDU, later a media manager and publicist, is officially applying for the Chancellery and the direct mandate in the east of Munich. For a “new style in politics” he founded the Todenhöfer team, which wants to fight against hatred of foreigners across Germany as a humane party, for a stable pension from the funds of the armaments budget and for one million new apartments per year in Germany.
Even a normal person should be able to afford to “build an apartment” again with ten percent equity. To this end, the now 80-year-old Todenhöfer wants to go back to the Bundestag, and because he has lived in Munich for more than 30 years, he will be running here right away. So he will not only be on stages all over Germany, but also on the streets in Munich to attract voters
He is likely to share many goals with a candidate, especially when it comes to tackling hatred of foreigners, discrimination and exclusion, but who has taken a completely different path. He got into politics through hip-hop, but that’s not entirely true either. For him his politics are hip-hop in the original sense, and this hip-hop is politics. Achim Seger, organizer, DJ, artist and much more, is fighting for a direct mandate in the north of Munich. Flight and migration are his issues, he wants to give a political stage to people who have no voice. Deconolialization is also one of his topics, so it is no coincidence that he is about to set off on a trip to Togo.
Hip-hop in its original form was the form of expression of the oppressed and enslaved, says Seger. In the meantime, this direction has fully arrived in the mainstream of society, and he hopes for the same for his topics and values. To this end, he is involved as one of the initiators in Bavaria in the party that goes with it: Die Urbane. A hip-hop party (you.) The “you” stand as an abbreviation for the urban, but should also be understood as a direct address in the sense of “we are you”. The 35-year-old artist will not campaign in the true sense of the word; somehow his entire artistic life should be understood as such, he says. His poetry slams and workshops, in which he deals with the fight against racism, also fit in with this.
Idiosyncratic slogan: “Germany is Önders”
Like most of the 65 direct applicants, he knows that his stage will remain more art. But with him, as with so many others, the motivation feeds itself from within, intrinsically. This is how Julia Amtmann would say of herself, even if she participates in a party that already has the specific goal of getting into as many parliaments as possible across Europe. The 25-year-old candidate competes for Volt in the north of Munich. In her job she is concerned with equal opportunities in education, in her free time she was already active for Amnesty International. At that time she was looking for a party to which she could bring her ideas and ideas, she says. “That’s when I came across Volt and couldn’t get away from it.”
In the field of applicants, this will apply to many, from the candidates of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany to the student Önder-Vedat Dönmez, who competes under the rather puzzling slogan “Germany is Önders”. You will do it like Julia Amtmann, who sometimes “throws billboard nights around her ears”. You will appear at information booths and show the entire spectrum of eligible candidates for a democratic election in Munich, after all, the former police officer and head of the corona deniers in Munich, Karl Hilz, will also stand.