On October 3 to 5, 2025, the Congress for New Democratic Rules took place here in Apolda near Weimar.
The alliances Deutschland steht auf, Wabeo, ZAAVV, Klagepaten and Freiheit beginnt mit Nein had issued the invitation.
With around 90 participants from different political directions, initiatives and movements, the current social,
political and structural problems were discussed and finally two approaches to solutions were agreed upon.
This is a voting procedure that is not based on yes, but on no. Kla.TV has captured the impressions for you.
My first question, where are you from?
From Augsburg.
I come from the Hochtaunus district.
From near Berlin.
I come from Brandenburg, exactly, to the north of Berlin.
I come from Frankfurt am Main.
I come from the Ruhr area in Bochum.
I come from Frankfurt am Main.
I come from Bavaria, the region of Upper Franconia.
What motivated you to come to this congress?
Yes, I'm at grassroots level and just wanted to talk to lots of people about democracy and how we can move forward together.
Well, we've been in resistance for many years now and now it's time to create a better society, and that's
why we were here this weekend, to see what's possible.
What moves me most is the issue of grassroots democracy and also the form in which opinions are found at this congress, because
for the first time there is a widespread departure from the idea that there is practically a podium at the front and the opinions
of the masses are predetermined by those sitting on the podium.
This is the first time that we have used structures to collect individual opinions from the congress and then reach a consensus.
Consensus refers to the process by which a group reaches a common, agreed opinion - a consensus.
In contrast to traditional voting based on the majority principle, systemic consensus does not seek the solution with the most
yes votes, but the one with the least resistance in the group.
This promotes inclusive, sustainable decisions in which even quiet or critical voices are heard.
We see that our democracy is no longer our democracy.
And we want to find a new way to reinstall democracy.
Historical moments may sometimes not appear to be historical moments at all.
So we're not in Hollywood, nobody came with "fanfare" yesterday.
The entire population didn't suddenly stand outside in the hall and stream in here and say, now something's happened.
The hero of the whole thing - doesn't even know who the hero is - it's you!
He wasn't spotlighted and everyone looked up to him and said, now something has changed.
But something historic happened yesterday.
The only chance we have of doing this is if we don't allow ourselves to be distracted and if we don't destroy ourselves.
And what we have done today, or rather what we have done over these two days, is that we
have now started an attempt to cross this out.
And to say that the energy for change that we make is directed solely against the centers of power.
Namely by saying that what we are doing, namely with the decision we have taken to lower referendums
and is to bring power into the hands of the people.
We are taking power away from them and bringing it to us.
And the only chance we have of doing that is if we don't allow ourselves to be distracted and if we don't destroy ourselves.
Everything we say is a table reserved for regulars if we don't have the power to implement what we have as an idea.
That is what we decided here yesterday.
Now Ralf Ludwig, one of the initiators of this congress, is standing with me.
Also my question, what is the aim of this congress?
The aim of this congress is to unite the many different groups, which all have great, important political issues, so
that they can find a common theme, the common sense of all the political groups, and formulate it together.
We have already done that, namely that we have to ask the question of power.
That no matter what issue we have, we can only implement this issue if the people in the country, the
citizens of a country, also hold political power.
In other words, they can ultimately decide on political issues themselves.
And how did you manage to get along with the different organizations and opinions and personalities?
Well, as you can see now, today is the last day. I'm already almost at the end.
We have a lot of strong personalities here, strong people who naturally also have important issues. And it was a tough
discussion and not always easy, but that's how it should be.
But in the end we achieved a good result, because I believe that everyone understood that this one essential issue, namely, in
order to implement your topic, you have to have political decision-making power, that this is the most important issue for
everyone, that this is, as I said, the basic issue for everyone.
And that worked wonderfully. And I think that's the exciting thing about it, everyone can continue to do their own thing,
their own personality, their own way of doing things, and just add another topic together
with everyone else, namely the question of power.
Standing with me is Stephanie Tsomakaeva, one of the organizers of this congress.
My first question is, what is the aim of this congress?
Yes, hello, thank you for being here.
Our aim at the congress is not to adopt new democratic rules, but to reach a consensus.
We met here with people from various initiatives, groups, simply people who are interested in the topic, to find out how we can
get the decision-making power from the decision-makers in parliaments to the people, how we can decide for
ourselves and how we can change these rules in the normal way prescribed by law or in accordance with the law.
Yes, thank you. And how was it to come to a consensus with the different movements and minds and opinions here?
Yes, it really is a challenge, a learning process I would even say.
Consensus voting is fundamentally different from voting "yes" or "no".
It definitely has the advantage that you don't split up.
We are still a group that feels like a family, even though we have had very controversial
discussions here and also a lot of emotion.
But of course we have the problem of finding the wording and understanding the questions precisely, that means really understanding
each other and also engaging in listening and giving ourselves the time and space to find the wording, which is a real challenge.
And then there's the fact that you no longer say what you're for, you say where you have no opposition.
And then you do it with your hands. And that's another challenge, because people aren't used to that.
And that really was the exercise last night.
How do I have to do it now? Do I have to do it like this or do I have to do it like this or like this?
Yes, I think this is a wonderful learning process that has shown that you can come to a solution with very different people and
not argue, not destroy each other, not end up fighting, as is often the case in politics, which in the end will certainly lead
to a much more peaceful world for all of us if we take this into the world and start to really reach a consensus on
a great political level. And that was the beginning here.
Yes, thank you very much. And what is your personal conclusion from this congress?
Yes, I found it very exciting. I'm pretty exhausted myself.
First of all, it was very strenuous for me, but it was worth the effort.
And I think we had a historic moment today, yesterday, when we decided this, because we managed to bring
together so many different people, organizations and groups. And my conclusion is very positive.
I believe that we are now moving forward and that we will now develop a momentum that the energy for change which exists
in the population will lead to the population now taking political decision-making power into their own hands.
And in what way is it historical? What was so special about those days?
Historically, there has never been anything like this, everyone has always tried to score political points with
their individual issues and believed that their individual issues were sufficient to change something.
But we realize that. We can take to the streets with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people against the
war and yet the politicians carry on as if these people weren't even there. It was the same in the coronavirus era.
We took to the streets with hundreds of thousands of people and the measures were implemented. We simply carried on.
And the historical thing now is that these organizations have recognized and understood, across ideologies, yes,
completely across the board politically, ideologically.
that it doesn't matter where people stand.
We must now be united as a population and take power into our own hands.
And if we have the power in our hands, then we can argue about the individual issues again, because then
we're no longer just sitting at the regulars' table, we're sitting in the middle and can decide.
And that is just historical, that people have understood.
We no longer want the power to be up there. We want the power to be in our hands.
I would also like to refer to WABEO again.
WABEO will be one of the most important organizations for the referendums, because WABEO is
responsible for election monitoring across the board.
And, of course, nationwide coverage also means monitoring the counting of referendums, because one of the risks we
will face is that they may give us a narrow defeat at the count if we don't pay attention to how they are counted.
What did you like about these days?
Yes, systemic consensus as a principle, and also sometimes that a very large group agrees on something, to go a certain way.
If this really gets energy and is implemented, it will have really paid off.
The idea that we were all allowed to work together ourselves and that there were no speakers who dictated everything.
It was good to get to know how consensus functions, how it works and that so many people really got involved with
ideas, with suggestions, in the sense of brainstorming, to come up with one or two or three denominators.
What can we really do? What is the most sensible thing to do to get our country back on the right track?
That there are so many alert minds here who are really interested in working together,
developing solutions and putting them into practice.
Although I am in the Basis party, the idea of consensus was not at all clear to me in the past.
So my impression of how well consensus works has deepened.
And I am well motivated for the work ahead and have renewed optimism that we will make progress.
What do you personally take away from these days?
That there are many committed people who want to make a positive contribution to democracy.
That it is possible to agree on certain topics where there is a consensus and where the culture of discussion can actually be
very, very good between all these people who are very different.
I already know what I have to do, and I will continue to do it.
And personally, it's always good when you meet people like here, who are all very active.
Networking is always important, coming together again, exchanging ideas.
Lots of new contacts, nice people I've met here.
As I just said, it's not easy to work on a new society, we already have democratic means, but the hurdles are very high.
And we need to work on reducing them.
My takeaway is that we need to be careful not to get bogged down in distractions and not to destroy each
other, but to focus on the goal of reinstalling democracy.
So, we've come to the end. What is the result of these three days?
Yes, the result of these three days is that we have set up working groups, that we now want to implement the
topic of constitutional amendments with these working groups, constitutional amendments in the federal states.
I think we have set up a total of seven working groups.
So now it's time to create the technical infrastructure, create the personnel infrastructure, marketing,
public affairs, risk analysis, in other words all these topics that are now on the agenda.
Of course, financing, security of financing, then of course the legal handling of all the issues,
because there are certain guidelines on how to do that.
So we are now moving on to practical implementation, so to speak.
And when will it continue?
Well, the working groups will start meeting immediately.
And we have now agreed to continue the congress online as a large plenary session every two months.
We will see whether the deadlines then remain at two months or whether the deadlines become shorter or longer.
And I think that next year, in about six months' time, we will be holding the next analog congress again.
Yes, thank you for the organization, also on behalf of all of us who were involved.
Yes, thank you for being there and reporting on it. Thank you very much!
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