analysis
Introductory discussions and participation offers: Not everyone is allowed to become a member of the “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance”. The party relies on diversity, but one group dominates.
Kofi Klutse is the kind of man the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance was looking for. Klutse is a businessman, he runs an eyewear shop in Berlin-Mitte. But even more important: Klutse, who came to Germany from Togo in the early 1990s, is a newcomer to politics. A fresh face for a fresh party – especially for a party that wants to be more than its prominent namesake.
At the BSW he discovered “where politics is done with common sense,” said Klutse in the Kosmos hall. The alliance’s first party conference will take place this Saturday in the former cinema in East Berlin. The party has 433 members so far – although the number of interested parties is said to be many times higher.
Getting to know each other for fear of being taken over
But the party should grow in a “controlled manner,” as its general secretary Christian Leye puts it. According to Leye, the BSW should not suffer from the “teething problems” of other young parties. To do this, we rely on personal networks and mandatory get-to-know-you meetings.
Kofi Klutse had written an email to the alliance. Then Alexander King invited him to an interview. King sits in the Berlin House of Representatives and was the first state politician to publicly convert from the Left to the BSW. The party’s founding is now coordinated in Berlin. There are currently around 50 members, says King. More are to follow after the party conference.
King, like other state coordinators, does not want to say how many interested parties were rejected. Behind closed doors there is talk of right-wingers and failed personalities who actually tried unsuccessfully to get involved. Also from the left. Names are not mentioned.
It is publicly known that the former left-wing politician Diether Dehm has not yet been admitted. Dehm once described the then Foreign Minister Heiko Maas as a “NATO rent boy.” Conspiracy stories are sometimes discussed in an online program he moderates.
Networks in the countries
Thomas Schmid, however, was successful. According to its own statement, the AfD is driving the Erfurt communications consultant to the BSW. In Thuringia it is particularly strong and particularly extreme. Schmid gained experience with Björn Höcke shortly after the AfD was founded. Now he wants to prevent him from coming to power in the state elections in September.
However, Schmid is frustrated with politics itself. The federal and state governments watched “as Germany hit the wall,” he says. Two years ago, he and a few other confidants had already thought about forming their own electoral alliance in Thuringia. Even back then, people sought contact with Wagenknecht, who was born in Jena.
Today Schmid is the BSW’s state coordinator. Some of the former colleagues also came along, such as Matthias Herzog, manager of the Erfurt basketball club.
Ex-leftists dominate new party
The BSW tries to present itself as a kind of people’s party. In her party conference speech, co-party leader Amira Mohamed Ali lists: craftsmen, theologians, professors, trade unionists, professional athletes, nurses – they are all represented in the new party. “We come from the entire spectrum of society,” concluded Mohamed Ali in her speech.
In fact, around half of the members come from Wagenknecht and Mohamed Ali’s old party. Ex-leftists take over almost all places in the party committees and in the organization of the party conference. Two European candidates were or are employees in her office, as are the general secretary of the federal party and the state coordinator for Brandenburg. People who used to be in the SPD, the Greens or even the FDP can also be found, but for now they are isolated cases.
Lars Leopold was still the top candidate for the Left in Lower Saxony in 2022. In his election commercial he railed against “rich assholes” in politics. Leopold, tattoos, earrings, rolled-up sleeves, says he has become increasingly alienated from his old party. Core social issues only played a role on posters.
Things are different at BSW, and we also stand for real peace policy. Leopold expects that more conversions will follow.
Accusation of targeted poaching
The methods used to achieve this are controversial. Leading BSW members deny that people from the left are being deliberately poached. “They’re coming at us on their own,” they say in unison.
In the old party we see things differently. “They know exactly the injuries of individuals,” says a leading Left Party official. The BSW would specifically use old conflicts to persuade dissatisfied people to change. Die Linke was surprised by the change of Eisenach’s mayor Katja Wolf. Wolf had publicly ruled out this step weeks earlier, but also said that she had made the decision herself.
Even among the few young members so far, most come from the left. Stephan and Anna Bleck, both in their mid-30s, joined the party in 2023 specifically to support the Wagenknecht camp. “It can’t go on like this, society will be divided,” says Stephan Bleck. Like many, his attitude to the Ukraine war brought him to Wagenknecht: With it, Germany could break out of the “war logic”.
Bleck runs a poultry farm in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Anna Bleck, a real estate agent, agrees with her husband: At the moment you have to be afraid that your own children might be worse off than their parents.
Wagenknecht wants to hold the new party together
After the party conference, the party wants to accept more members. But just “controlled”. There should be “participation offers” for non-members, says Secretary General Leye. At the same time, some are concerned that they will not be able to fill all the places on the list if the BSW not only runs in European and state elections this year, but also at local level. The AfD already had similar problems.
Sahra Wagenknecht herself has a concrete idea of how things should work in the party. “You are not a Left 2.0,” she said in her speech, alluding to the years-long dispute in her early party. “The most scheming” should not rise to the top in the BSW structures. Wagenknecht warned: “Let us treat each other with care.”
Several state coordinators describe it similarly. It is now a matter of keeping the mix of ex-leftists and political newcomers together, they say. At the party conference it works well for the time being: when people warn about the AfD or go against the traffic lights, when the Russia sanctions are declared insane, then everyone claps unanimously.