The political movement Liberté-Fräiheet organised a barn party in Niderfeuelen, and not a single speech was held throughout the afternoon.
Around one-hundred people came to the Liberté-Fräiheet barn party on Saturday. They played live music, hosted a BBQ and provided activities for children. But politics were somehow less the focus of the event. Only a few banners with the party’s manifesto were printed out and visible; all materials alluded to 'freedom' as the focal point of the party's campaign.
“If we don’t have freedom, then everything else is unimportant,” said Liberté-Fräiheet's lead candidate for the centre district, Bas Schagen. Their manifesto includes sections on inflation, affordable living and the healthcare system, but their focal point is the freedom they view as lost at the beginning of the pandemic.
Quite a few candidates from Liberté-Fräiheet have joined from other political parties, such as Roy Reding, once a member of the right-wing party ADR. He switched over because other parties started to feel like they were all the exact same. But many of Liberté-Fräiheet’s candidates are also from a movement against pandemic measures implemented within the Grand-Duchy. The lead candidate in the northern district, Carole Dentzer, says that self-determination is very important to her. She professes support for both people with Long COVID and people she views as harmed by the COVID vaccine.
The lead candidate in the southern district, Giovanni Patri, criticises the current government. He says that everything is arranged “between friends” who never commit to any reforms that are of actual use to the country.
The choice not to have any political speeches was intentional, says Roy Reding. Their manifesto can be found on social media and the internet. The party has hung a few posters, but this is the extent of their political advertising. This is a deliberate choice - but was also done for financial reasons. On election day, they explain that the party wants to have a “fantastic election party” no matter what the result is, because “all of our people are zen.”
The candidates were in noticeably good spirits throughout the event, despite public discord between candidates within the northern district - early last week - after Jessica Schiltz, Jessica Marbes and Angelika Dasbach reprimanded the party's members in a Facebook post. They said they had been "excluded and passed over." Carole Dentzer commented on the matter, saying that "we’re all just people" and while there may be some differences of opinions, politically they are all still following the same direction.
