The free voters in the district of Munich have repositioned themselves in terms of personnel.
Among other things, Otto Bußjäger is the new district chairman.
In the interview he talks about the restart.
District
- The Free Voters have repositioned themselves at the district level. In the election of the board of directors of the district association, district councilor and district administrator's vice Otto Bußjäger from Höhenkirchen-Siegertsbrunn clearly prevailed against long-time district chief and state parliament member Nikolaus Kraus from Ismaning. Kraus, who was unable to prevail against his competitors Florian Ernstberger (Graefelfing) and Pauline Miller (Hohenbrunn) in the election for the two deputy positions, remained in the end only as an assessor.
In general, the executive board of FW is almost always new.
In addition to Bußjäger and his deputies Ernstberger and Miller, it also includes managing director Dirk Wöhling (Höhenkirchen-Siegertsbrunn), secretary Thomas Jungwirth (Putzbrunn), treasurer Peter Rohrhirsch (Ottobrunn) and the co-opted member Johannes Ertl (Oberhaching).
Reason enough to ask the new district chairman, Bußjäger, what the new start means for the free voters in the district.
Before the last local election, Nikolaus Kraus disputed your candidacy for district administration - ultimately in vain. Now you have overthrown him as district chairman. Do you feel satisfaction?
No.
It's neither about old stories nor about individuals.
For a long time it had become apparent that a new start was desired in the district association of free voters.
This has now been carried out in the context of the board elections.
And if you look at the new management team, I think the restart went well.
Nikolaus Kraus is still a member of the state parliament. How do you imagine working with him?
My motto is “It's better together”.
He is not only a member of parliament, but also my colleague in the district council.
Of course we will involve him in matters of state politics.
He will surely support us there too.
We have already talked about it.
The next state election is due in autumn 2023.
Nikolaus Kraus always achieved good results.
That is why I would support his candidacy again.
As the new head of the district, what have you identified as your most pressing tasks in the next few months?
The very first goal is the involvement of the youth.
We want to come forward young and dynamic.
That is why we are planning the establishment of the Young Free Voters in the district.
We have been working towards this for some time.
If everything goes well, the inaugural meeting should take place on November 10th.
So you want to involve the youth more closely?
Not only that. I also want to empower women within the Free Voters.
With Pauline Miller we now have a member of the district executive who is also on the executive committee of the Free Voters Die Frauen in Bayern.
With their help, we want to take a step forward here too.
In addition, it is important to me personally to join forces with the local chapters.
What does it mean exactly?
We want to approach those responsible and members in the individual local associations, bring them together and make them offers - for example, with regard to events, excursions or topics that can be taken up.
We also want to regionalize the work.
There will be regional representatives for the individual regions in the district.
You know, the Graefelfinger is not necessarily interested in what the Aschheimer does, but he is certainly interested in topics that may also be of interest to the Planegger, Neurieder, Baierbrunner and Schäftlarner.
That is why we want to create a North Region, a West Region, an East Region and a South Region, each with their own overarching themes.
The newly elected board recently met for its first meeting. Your conclusion from the first meeting?
An incredible dynamic has developed.
Everyone wants to get involved and move us forward.
The District Association of Free Voters now has a new Facebook page, which we use well, and we have also redesigned the website.
We also have 15 new members.
There's an incredible train in there.
But we need that too.
To sum it up again: We want to become younger, more modern, more feminine, more digital, more communicative and more regional and to be the source of ideas and the engine in the district politics.
Because now the foundation stone for the local elections in 2026 is being laid in terms of topics, personnel and work structures.
You can find more news from the Munich district here.
