For a long time, Stefan Jagel has remained silent about what his party’s top officials are currently doing at the federal level. But now it’s too much for the parliamentary group spokesman for the left in the Munich city council. “Personally, this is increasingly frustrating for me,” he says of the “extreme crisis in the party,” how the split debate around Sahra Wagenknecht on the one hand and the current party executive around Janine Wissler on the other is generally felt.
Jagel sees nothing against a lively culture of discussion and argument, which is part of his party. Nevertheless, the former model left Wagenknecht should soon decide whether she wants to found her own party or not. However, he fears that this impasse will continue – to the detriment of the entire party. He put it drastically: “I believe that we have to go through a process from hell.”
The conflict at the top is now also rubbing off on the base, Jagel has observed: “There is a great deal of uncertainty about how the party will continue.” It is not the case that the rift that started in Berlin would continue in Munich and that a split is also threatening here, he assures: The district association is relatively closed, the number of members is stable at almost 800.
It is difficult to fill the information stands
But what makes it difficult for Stefan Jagel is that, of all times, the necessary motivation is being replaced by frustration in the state election campaign. “We can no longer get the information stands manned,” he reports. “Due to the conflict, the ability to campaign has been lost to some extent. We can no longer use the election campaign to build up the party.” The entry into the state parliament, which was still optimistically envisaged five years ago, is becoming more and more distant.
What Jagel recently “personally hurt” was a statement by Left-wing member of the Bundestag Klaus Ernst, who recently spoke of “a large group of politically incompetent clowns in the party” who don’t deal with social policy. Jagel rejects this allegation by the Wagenknecht party member “in the strongest possible terms”. In the Munich city council, the left-wingers took care of “social issues almost every day.”
Former trade unionist Klaus Ernst, who was elected to the Bundestag as number two on the Bavarian state list, is hardly ever present at party activities, Jagel criticizes: “He only comments from the outside line.” In any case, Ernst’s accusation was “absurd”, which is why Jagel “expects that this narrative will no longer be told – because I notice that it sticks with people”. When he currently speaks to people, he increasingly hears the accusation: “You only care about your conflict.” The party is still doing good work in social policy, at all levels: “Just nobody gets it anymore.”
Nevertheless, another party is out of the question for Stefan Jagel, he assures. The left is the only political group that has a real redistribution policy in mind, he says. “I am convinced that the party will survive.”