parties
Maaßen wants to bring a union of values into the Thuringian state parliament
Ex-President for the Protection of the Constitution Hans-Georg Maaßen would like to enter the state parliament in Thuringia with the Union of Values. photo
© Michael Reichel/dpa
Weak poll numbers, big ambitions: The Union of Values wants to enter the Thuringian state parliament and former head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution Hans Georg Maaßen can even imagine the office of Prime Minister.
The conservative union of values is setting the bar high in Thuringia despite weak survey results so far – with the ex-president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution Hans-Georg Maaßen wants to nominate a candidate for prime minister. He is available for this, said Maaßen at the founding of the Thuringian regional association in Bad Berka near Weimar.
According to Maaßen, it is the first regional association in Germany and should follow in Saxony. However, the 61-year-old does not want to go to the state parliament in Erfurt – the former CDU member of the Bundestag Albert Weiler (58) was elected as the top candidate for the Thuringian state elections on September 1st with 33 of 34 votes cast.
Insa survey: Union of values at one percent
Maaßen said he wanted to compete with Weiler in a “double pack” and bring the union of values into the Thuringian parliament. The Union of Values is considered a party to the right of the CDU. The personnel construct with a candidate for prime minister who is not running for the state parliament is legally possible, but unusual – also in view of an initial survey result. In an Insa survey in March, the union of values in Thuringia was only at one percent; in a potential analysis commissioned by her at 5 to 15 percent.
Maaßen is federal chairman of the Values Union party, which was founded in mid-February and which also includes former CDU members. The Union of Values is the second prominent new party to be founded this year after the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW).
He sees himself as a bourgeois alternative to Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Left), said Maaßen. “We don’t want to run to be the opposition.” Maaßen calls Thuringia his home association, which he particularly wants to support – he now has his main residence in southern Thuringia. He left it open whether he wanted to run for the Bundestag there a second time in 2025 after 2021.
According to Weiler, the Values Union in Thuringia currently has around 50 members. Around 200 further applications for membership have been submitted, including from former members of the recently dissolved small party Citizens for Thuringia. The applications would be examined. There is also a 15-month probationary period for new members, “so that we don’t have any radical tendencies in the party.”