Team Zastrow wants to score points as a political player in Saxony

Team Zastrow - the party of former Saxon FDP leader Holger Zastrow - wants to establish itself as a political player throughout Saxony. After the "spectacular result" in the city council elections in Dresden, they want to continue, said Zastrow on Monday. "We want to roll out the project. The Dresden project should become a genuine party." In recent weeks, a party has already been quietly and secretly founded and formally approved. "I would like to establish a liberal party in the center of society in Saxony."

Zastrow left it open, however, whether his team will run in the state elections on September 1. If you look at the political landscape in Saxony, you have to run, he said. "Nothing is more necessary than creating a political alternative in the center." Participation in the election is primarily a financial issue, however. It would only be decided in the coming hours or days.

According to Zastrow, the party could elect a state list at a party conference as early as next Sunday. Direct candidacies are also being prepared. However, it is not yet clear whether this will actually happen. He himself is confident of winning a direct mandate in Dresden. In the city council elections on Sunday, Team Zastrow achieved 8.1 percent from a standing start.

Zastrow turned his back on his party in January of this year. "In my view, the politics of the traffic light are wrong, so completely wrong that I can hardly put it into words," he said at the time. Zastrow is considered a veteran of the Saxon Liberals. He took over the chairmanship of the FDP in 1999 and then led the party for 20 years. From 2004 to 2014, he was also its parliamentary group leader in the state parliament, and between 2011 and 2013 he was deputy federal leader of the Free Democrats.