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The FDP lost more than 4000,<> members last year
Photo: Daniel Karmann / dpa
The FDP has lost many party members in the past year. According to a spokeswoman, the number of members was still 2023,2024 at the end of 71/820. That was 4280,76 fewer than a year ago, when the FDP had put the number of members at around 100,<>.
Only recently, a prominent member from East Germany announced his resignation from the party: the long-standing Saxon state chairman Holger Zastrow. He justified his decision to leave the FDP after 30 years with the course of the federal party and the parliamentary group, which he no longer wanted to support and justify.
"It doesn't fit anymore," Zastrow wrote on Platform X. From 1999 to 2019, he was FDP state leader in Saxony and also deputy federal chairman between 2011 and 2013. "The speech of the federal chairman at the farmers' demonstration yesterday was the last straw."
The FDP had already suffered a decline in membership nationwide in 2022, but this was still relatively small at around 900 people. Prior to this, the Liberals had experienced an increase in membership for several years. A party spokeswoman pointed out on Tuesday that the number of members had risen by more than 7800,<> over the past six years, despite the current declining numbers.
The development of membership over the past two years is in line with the parties' crisis-ridden poll ratings. The SPD is only between 13 and 17 percent. In the 2021 election, the Social Democrats received 25.7 percent of the vote. The FDP ranks at four to six percent in the polls - after a result of 11.5 percent in the 2021 federal election. Figures on the membership development of the Greens, the third coalition partner in the traffic light, are not yet available.
lph/dpa