The parliamentary group leader of the left in the Bundestag, Mohamed Ali, no longer wants to stand in the next board election. The background is the dispute in the party about Wagenknecht. Mohamed Ali also criticized the content of her party’s course.
Left faction leader Amira Mohamed Ali is resigning from her post because of her party’s dealings with Sahra Wagenknecht. “I have decided not to stand as a candidate for the parliamentary group chairmanship of the left in the Bundestag in the coming board elections,” said Mohamed Ali in a statement that was available to the dpa news agency.
“The final tipping point for my decision was the unanimous decision of the party executive of June 10, 2023 and the fact that the large majority of the state executives adopted this decision,” the statement said. “It says that Sahra Wagenknecht has no future in the left and that she should resign her mandate together with other members of parliament. This shows in a hitherto unknown clarity the desire and the goal to force part of the membership out of the party.”
In a unanimously agreed statement, the Left Board had asked Wagenknecht to return her Bundestag mandate and declared that she would see the future of the party without her. Party leader Janine Wissler justified the procedure by saying that she was questioning the party from within. The board “fights for the unity of the party and against all attempts to split it,” she said. “From our point of view it is clear: Sahra has made her decision.”
Will Wagenknecht found his own party?
Wagenknecht had repeatedly criticized the party leadership and irritated with a possible founding of the party – she wants to decide on this by the end of the year. The left chairmen Janine Wissler and Martin Schirdewan finally took the initiative and pushed through the decision against Wagenknecht.
In her statement, Mohamed Ali also wrote that she was finding it increasingly difficult to represent the course of the party leadership in public. This contradicts their political convictions in many places. Among other things, she criticized the fact that no “fundamental no to the wrong course of the traffic light government” was formulated, for example to climate policy, which puts a financial burden on people. There is also a lack of “a clear yes to a consistent peace policy”.
Clear criticism of party course
The party leadership wants to win over disappointed Green voters, she said. But you can’t reach those for whom left-wing politics should be made, not even AfD voters who can still be won back.
For the parliamentary group, the internal division is a risk. It could lose its status and thus financial resources and influence if more than two MPs switch to a Wagenknecht party and leave the parliamentary group. She left it open how Mohamed Ali would behave. She only wrote: “I will continue to work in the Bundestag for the goals and convictions that have supported my political work so far.”