Talk:Free Voters

Wählergruppe
I see Wählergruppe and Freie Wähler are separate articles in the German Wikipedia, but my German is not good enough to understand the difference between the two terms. Are they close enough for a combined article in en: to discuss both? There are a fair number of articles on municipalities with mayors etc given cryptic party designations like "BWV"; it would be nice to be able to link these to some article. jnestorius(talk) 11:19, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

This is easy to explain: There are many generic names for such "non-parties": "Freie Wählervereinigung", "Wählergruppe",… See all those words in italics in Wählergruppe. There are also specific groups having "Freie Wähler" as a part of their name. "Wählergruppe" explains the general term, and the nature of those groups, while "Freie Wähler" is a disambiguation page listing such specific groups as well as referring to "Wählergruppe". I think that one article is sufficient for all of those groups in the english Wikipedia. A particular party can of course get their own article if its importance justifies that. There is a Wikimedia software flaw which makes this difficult, however: you cannot make "Freie Wähler" a link to "Wählergruppe" in the english Wikipedia or vice versa, while separate articles exist in the german Wikipedia, as it seems. --CHF (talk) 13:36, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Success in Bavaria / CSU
When looking for sources, please note that BILD ist "Yellow Press" and not a particularly reliable source! Others think that cause and effect might be reversed: WDR radio programme

Pauli had not succeeded to "assume power" in Bavaria's most important party, the CSU, and left. After that she went to the FW of Bavaria. It's unclear if she did that primarily in order to have a chance to become elected. The FW expelled her later, now she's founded her own party.

It's very uncertain how much of the FW's success in this one election must be contributed to Pauli. There were two effects: I am sure that this influence is not as important as it looks in the article, because there are many FW groups, some connected, some independent from each other, and Pauli almost has no influence at all outside of Bavaria. --CHF (talk) 13:36, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Some pleople liked her, and now voted for FW instead of CSU.
 * The FW have been discussed much more in the press due to Pauli, drawing more voters' attention to this alternative.

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Description as "centre-right"
, in the media "Freie Wähler" are usually described as "bürgerlich-konservativ", i.e. "bourgeois conservative" or "middle-class conservative". They are seen as rivals of the CDU/CSU and the AfD. That supports the description as "centre-right". Calling BBC "state media" is inaccurate, in my view. From our own BBC News: "The BBC is a quasi-autonomous corporation authorised by royal charter, making it operationally independent of the government, who have no power to appoint or dismiss its director general, and require it to report impartially. However, as with all major media outlets, it has been accused of political bias from across the political spectrum, both within the United Kingdom and abroad." Kind regards, Robby.is.on (talk) 08:37, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree with Robby.is.on – the BBC is a public broadcaster, not state media. There are crucial differences between the two.--Autospark (talk) 15:26, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That makes much sense, I have just been going through some political wikipages and removing all references from state media sources, as they present a conflict of interest, I knew that the BBC has some independence but I did not know it is allowed to operate entirely independently from the government line and is simply just funded by it. My apologies! B. M. L. Peters (talk) 06:09, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

National Political Stances
As the Free Voters gain increased national attention in Germany leading up to the federal election, I feel that it would be fitting to update this page with their stances as a national party instead of having that information solely available in English on the page for the Free Voters of Bavaria. I believe that this is particularly important for this election as they actually have a small chance of entering parliament. WKnudsen71 (talk) 22:32, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Lead is extremely confusing
What do you mean "Free Voters in Germany may belong to an association of people which participates in an election without having the status of a registered political party." Does it "belong to an association of people" or not, and what does it even mean? Is this a single organisation or does it refer to a type of organisation? Is it a political party? C9mVio9JRy (talk) 15:01, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Assessment
In my opinion, the following points should be adapted.

The political positioning would have to be designated as center or center-right. For ideology, the term populism would have to be deleted. The term is not coherent in the overall picture and can cause a wrong impression.

Here are the reasons.

Free Voters are strongly decentralized and see themselves as a group close to citizen communities. They also do issue-orientied work in state parliaments and at the local level. Society 2023 (talk) 11:32, 16 April 2023 (UTC)


 * They are to the Right of the CDU, they should be classified as that in the infobox. 2A02:8108:1640:5282:64E4:3687:5C8E:C2D7 (talk) 10:21, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * They are not right of the CDU. They are pretty much a match with the CDU/CSU with a bigger focus on rural politics 2A02:8108:1140:A86:3DD1:C150:6828:2145 (talk) 20:00, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Right wing positioning
As others already stated, Free Voters can hardly be deemed as right wing. They share most of their positions with the Union and only have small differences, mainly in regards of regional politics. The politico Article mainly refers to Hubert Aiwanger and the bavarian part of FV which is the most right leaning 'Landesverband'. But that part shares most positions with the bavarian CSU. As long as the CSU isn't deemed right wing, FV can't be either. CiAniol2 (talk) 10:49, 15 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I didn't delete the part that refers to the Politico Article obviously because ilthe fact that Politico refered to them as a right wing party is a factual statement. CiAniol2 (talk) 10:58, 15 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Only on one issue - Covid, which is anyways very wrong of Politico. --95.24.82.68 (talk) 17:14, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Colour
Teal is mentioned as a colour of their party, but not represented. I am not familiar with their CI, maybe for someone to look into at some point. 178.85.156.127 (talk) 07:35, 9 October 2023 (UTC)