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Hans-Georg Maaßen wants to concentrate on building the “Union of Values” as a “bourgeois party”
Photo: Michael Reichel/dpa
The former Federal Constitutional Protection President Hans-Georg Maaßen does not want to run in the state elections in Thuringia. In an interview with the "Freie Wort", which is published in southern Thuringia, he said in response to a corresponding question: "I don't plan to do that." Maaßen continued who still wants to decide who should run as the top candidate for the "Union of Values" in the Thuringian state elections .
The 61-year-old is federal chairman of the ultra-conservative “Values Union” and wants to found a new party with it. The association set the course for this at a members' meeting in Erfurt more than a week ago. CDU leader Friedrich Merz has already announced that his party would burn all bridges to the “Union of Values” if it founded a party.
Maaßen said in the interview that he wanted a change of government in Thuringia and wanted to be heavily involved in the election campaign. “I want to help ensure that Thuringia, where Mr. Ramelow governs with the red-red-green coalition, has a bourgeois prime minister again,” said Maaßen.
A new state parliament will be elected in Thuringia on September 1st. Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow is currently the only left-wing head of government in the country with a red-red-green minority government. The alliance lacks four votes in parliament, so it is dependent on the opposition's voting behavior when passing laws.
Until recently, Maaßen was a member of the Thuringian CDU state association. In 2021 he ran as a direct candidate in the federal election in southern Thuringia, but failed.
Leaving the CDU
Last week, Maaßen announced that he was leaving the CDU. “Today I decided to end my membership in the CDU,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. He will now concentrate on building the “Union of Values” as a “bourgeois party”. He also posted a picture of a cut-up CDU membership card.
The CDU initiated party expulsion proceedings against Maaßen almost a year ago. Maaßen continually violates the party's principles and repeatedly uses "language from the milieu of anti-Semites and conspiracy ideologies, including ethnic expressions."
The “Union of Values” was founded in 2017; its members felt that the course of then Chancellor Angela Merkel was not sufficiently conservative. Soon afterwards, however, the club became increasingly radicalized. Most recently, the “Values Union” attracted attention because two members took part in a meeting of right-wing networkers in Potsdam. Apparently there was talk of plans for a mass expulsion of people with a migrant background from Germany.
czl/dpa