Aiwanger members run away: Fürth city association wants to leave free voters

Created: 01/16/2022, 06:13

The members run away from Hubert Aiwanger and the Free Voters.

Now the city association from Fürth also wants to turn its back on the party.

© Matthias Balk/dpa/archive image

New trouble for Hubert Aiwanger: After 32 years, the chairwoman of the Free Voters in Fürth, Heidi Lau, wants to turn her back on the party together with the city association.

Fürth - The year really didn't start well for the free voters in Franconia.

After the departure of the Nuremberg city association, new trouble threatened from the immediate vicinity.

Now obviously the free voters in Fürth* also want to turn their backs on the party of Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger.

"We want to leave.

But we want to let the members vote on it again," confirms Heidi Lau, chairwoman of the Free Voters in Fürth, at the request of the

.

Lau is the veteran of the party in Fürth.

Following the “Nuremberg model”, Lau and her city association now want to say goodbye to the party forever.

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Free voters in crisis: members in Fürth for an exit

Heidi Lau has been a member of the Fürth City Council since 1990.

After 32 years in local politics, the chairwoman of the Free Voters in the cloverleaf city now wants to persuade the political comrades-in-arms to leave the party.

"I have received verbal confirmation from many members that we should now leave the party." Unlike his colleagues in Nuremberg, Lau had not yet conducted a written survey among the 30 or so members.

Lau thinks the time is right now.

As soon as the Corona situation has eased a little, the members should finally vote on leaving at a meeting.

After the disappointing “Epiphany Meeting” of free voters, Heidi Lau finally decided to leave the party of Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger with “her” Fürth city association. © Reinhard Lau

Speaking of Corona *: The attitude of the party leadership to the Covid pandemic obviously led to the final decision for Heidi Lau and her political friends. In contrast to the Nuremberg ex-party friends, Lau criticizes that Aiwanger* did not stick to his skeptical attitude, especially towards a possible vaccination requirement. “I will not allow myself to be patronized and completely reject compulsory vaccination. We in Fürth are not to be had at all for coercion. We can no longer stand behind this," says Lau, who was actively involved in founding the Fürth Citizens' List more than 30 years ago in protest against the construction of a waste incineration plant. The Free Voters have changed since the start of their political careers. According to Lau, lucrative posts and personal careers are now in the foreground."We are no longer a grassroots party." The parliamentary group in particular no longer has an ear for the citizens. Instead, a mudslinging would rage in the background and with a view to the next elections among the "hopelessly hostile party friends" the knives would already be sharpened everywhere.

Fürth's free voter leader Lau is disappointed with the party leadership

Of course, Lau himself has recently been caught in the crossfire of criticism.

Lau made negative headlines in her hometown, especially for an interview with an opinion platform that was often criticized as right-wing populist and made critical statements about Corona policy.

A more left-leaning alliance against right-wing extremism even awarded Lau the “brown shamrock”, which the retired secondary school teacher indignantly rejected.

"This whole party rabble is just alien and repugnant to me and it doesn't fit in with the original idea of ​​the Free Voters either," Lau complains and says that she was particularly disappointed by this year's epiphany meeting of the party. At the virtual meeting, the party leader, who is currently being criticized in Franconia, did not address the problems of the party or the departure of the Nuremberg city association. In terms of content, according to Lau, the party obviously wants to continue the “cosy course” towards the CSU* as a major coalition partner. "I'm really disappointed. That's why we want to turn our backs on the party now," says Lau, summing up the mood in the Fürth City Association of Free Voters.