The Blue Party (Germany)

Concept of the "Blue Turn" Citizens' Forum

The main objective of the Bürgerforum Blaue Wende was to increase the involvement of the general public in political decision-making processes. The basic philosophy was based on the desire for a balanced representation of all affected parties in the preparation and decision-making process. In particular, this included voices and opinions which were no longer (sufficiently) heard through established party work, and the hurdles of typical party work had led to the exclusion of intelligible positions from science and society. For this purpose, politically interested people were able to participate in discussion forums independent of political membership and to cast compiled political demands into an election program. This participatory programme then became the basis for the Blue Party and the political activities of its regional associations. Within the framework of the citizens' forum, participating citizens were also able to get onto the corresponding state lists of the state associations, in order to represent the elaborated programs in the sense of the citizens' forum in the event of an election success.

History

Foundation

Formally, the party was founded a week before the 2017 federal election by Michael Muster, a lawyer and longtime confidant of Petry, and registered with the Federal Election Commissioner on September 26, 2017. Muster is the husband of former Saxon state parliament member Kirsten Muster, who, like Petry, resigned from the Saxon AfD parliamentary group. The reasons given for leaving the party were the AfD's drift to the right, post-hunting, and the problematic human interaction within the party's leadership.

In November 2017, a citizens' forum called Blaue Wende was founded. There, the possibility existed to get involved regardless of party affiliation, with the party thereby primarily fulfilling the purpose of being allowed to run in elections. In what form the open citizens' forums and the formally organized party should be connected remained open. On 14 October 2017, Petry confirmed that she would join the party "soon".

Petry had already registered an internet address "dieblauen.de" in July 2017, but explained when asked that it was only an "idea". Later she said that the new party would not bear such a name.

As of September 2018, the Thuringian state association was led by former state executive committee member and district chairman of the CDU Thuringia Jens Krautwurst.

Supraregional elections

The Blue Party did not run in the 2019 European elections. In this regard, it was speculated that the party could not collect the 4000 signatures required for a candidacy.

The party contested the 2019 state election in Saxony for the first time. The top candidate was Frauke Petry. The party received 7786 votes, which corresponds to a share of 0.4% of the valid votes.

In the 2019 state election in Thuringia, the party received 857 of the state's votes, representing 0.1% of the valid votes.

Resolution

The party leader Petry declared on 5 November 2019 that the party would dissolve by the end of the year. This decision was justified by the poor results in the state elections in the same year: Neither in Saxony nor in Thuringia the party managed to enter the parliaments. The decision to dissolve the party was taken at the members' party conference in Döben, a district of Grimma.