In the last election, angry citizens had to settle for 2.4 percent. Now the party got four times as much. What’s behind it?
The citizens in anger (BiW) cheer. According to the first ARD forecast, the party won 10.5 percent of the votes in the Bremen Parliament. If it stays that way, it would mean ten mandates – the right-wing party has never received that many.
The Bürger in Wut were founded back in 2004, they describe themselves as a middle-class conservative voters’ association and emerged from the Bremen state association of the so-called Schill party. Ronald Schill had previously become known as a lawyer because of his tough sentences under the name “Judge Merciless” and founded the populist party Rechtsstaat Offensive in 2000.
But while Schill rose to second mayor in Hamburg, his party remained irrelevant in the rest of the republic. In Bremen, too, neither he nor his successors, Bürger in Wut, were ever able to celebrate the great success. Since 2007, only in Bremerhaven have they ever cleared the five percent hurdle in the state elections.
Citizens in anger: Bremen’s small party quadruples the result
BiW founder Jan Timke (52), an ex-federal policeman, comes from there. And there, in the smaller and poorer city of the two-city state, the potential of protest voters has always been higher than in Bremen.
Thanks to the right to vote in the smallest federal state, the angry citizens always secured exactly one mandate in the citizenship, but that was about it. And now, according to the forecast, they are achieving a double-digit result.
BiW far stronger than the AfD 2019
Undoubtedly, enraged citizens benefited from the fact that the AfD was not allowed to vote in Bremen because of internal competing lists of candidates. It is noteworthy, however, that the citizens in anger now got more votes than the AfD ever before in Bremen. In 2019, the right-wing party had only reached 6.1 percent.
“We are super happy about this result. It shows that our conservative policy is on fertile ground,” said BiW founder Timke on Sunday after the first forecasts. Timke said that the BiW tried to inspire voters with a conservative program. Apparently that was successful.
Candidate took part in far-right marches
The party locates itself between the CDU and AfD. In terms of content, the party’s focus is on fighting crime and internal security, often linked to the issue of immigration. “Consistently deport stabbers” was an election slogan. Another: “Driving should not be a luxury.”
The BiW distance themselves from the extremism of the AfD. However, the media also found a candidate on the list who had taken part in clearly right-wing extremist marches. The party expelled him. Here you can read more about it.
Now the citizens in anger want to merge with Alliance Germany
But not only the fact that the AfD was not present in Bremen this year gave the citizens a boost in anger. Financially, the BiW were supported in this election campaign by another small party, the Alliance Germany.
According to the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”, this is a group supported by some wealthy supporters, which was founded in Berlin at the beginning of the year and now has 13 state associations. It feeds on Christian-conservative groups and AfD-weary people.
Citizens in Anger and Alliance Germany have already announced that they want to merge after the election in Bremen. The BiW could thus “extend the political sphere of activity for our members beyond the borders of the state of Bremen,” said Timke.
