More than 50 members of the Left are calling for Sahra Wagenknecht to be expelled from the party. She is not only speculating about founding her own party – but is also actively pushing this forward with resources from the left.
Sahra Wagenknecht is threatened with expulsion from the left. Over 50 members of their party submitted a corresponding application for party exclusion to the North Rhine-Westphalia State Arbitration Commission on Monday afternoon. The initiators confirmed this to the ARD capital studio.
“The scenario that clubs are now being founded in peace and Sahra Wagenknecht is building a new party with the resources of the Left is no longer acceptable to us,” says Sofia Leonidakis, parliamentary group leader of the Left in the Bremen parliament.
In addition to Leonidakis, co-initiator of the application is Elif Eralp, left-wing member of the Berlin House of Representatives. A joint press release from them states: “For several months she (Sahra Wagenknecht) has been publicly considering founding a competing party. She emphasizes that it is purely practical questions that are keeping her waiting.” Leonidakis and Eralp also refer to media reports about the founding of a club by potential supporters of a Wagenknecht party.
Club as a forerunner of a Wagenknecht party?
Last Friday it was announced that an association called “BSW – for Reason and Justice” had been registered at the end of September. According to a report by “Stern”, seven people are behind the founding.
Wagenknecht himself is not said to be among them, but Jochen Flackus is. The former Saarland state chairman of the Left is considered a long-time confidant of Wagenknecht’s husband Oskar Lafontaine. In addition, the association’s statutes state that it can “support the establishment of political parties and promote it through the use of the association’s material resources.”
Leonidarkis and Eralp see this association as a precursor to founding a party and accuse Wagenknecht of behavior that is harmful to the party. The ongoing speculation about the founding of a new party and the resulting breakup of the left also weighed on the election campaigns in Bavaria and Hesse. The party failed to enter both state parliaments.
Signatories also from Wagenknecht’s home association
According to Leonidakis and Eralp, the signatories of the application to exclude Wagenknecht from the party come from various party movements and state associations. These also include members from North Rhine-Westphalia, Wagenknecht’s home association, where support for the prominent left now appears to be dwindling. The NRW Bundestag members Sevim Dağdelen and Christian Leye, however, had spoken out in favor of Wagenknecht several times.