Left Party and Wagenknecht: Totally broken

The Left Party has been surrounded by speculation about a split for a long time. All eyes are on Sahra Wagenknecht – is she serious and founding her own party? Nervousness is growing among leftists.

“My party is in a terrible state,” says a man who should know because he has known the left for many years and works for them in a key position. However, he does not want to be named. So is the Left facing a split? The answer is clear: “There is a rift deeper than ever, deep into the base.”

Whenever you have spoken to left-wing politicians in the past few months, you have encountered frustration and anger. Now there is often only a shake of the head. Many in the party have gone into internal immigration.

For some of these people, Sahra Wagenknecht is a beacon of hope. They want the currently most popular left-wing politician to leave and found her own party. The class struggle should then be in the foreground again, standing up for workers, families, pensioners. In addition, an outstretched hand towards Russia and no arms deliveries to Ukraine.

A Wagenknecht party would obviously have potential. According to the polling institute INSA, ten percent of all eligible voters in Germany would vote for them, and another 30 percent could at least imagine doing so. That would be an enormous political mobilization, says the political scientist Julia Reuschenbach from the Free University of Berlin: “But you would probably accept getting votes from the far right, because Wagenknecht is already being used in right-wing populist and right-wing extremist circles and thus also among many AfD -followers hyped.”

Party formation is difficult

Wagenknecht herself does not react negatively to the question of whether she wants to found her own new party. “I think a reasonable party for peace and justice is urgently needed. Unfortunately, the left has largely vacated this place. That’s another reason why it’s currently primarily the AfD that is benefiting from the increasing dissatisfaction.”

But founding a party is not that easy. Wagenknecht is still after the failure with their project “Get up”. She herself says today that “getting up” was unprepared. She doesn’t want to make that mistake again. And she is also aware that organization is not her forte. If you want to found a party in Germany, you have to formulate a statute, collect signatures and go through a lot of bureaucracy. None of this is part of Wagenknecht’s core competencies. Even her opponents see her as a gifted speaker with a talent for picking up and focusing on popular opinion. But leading committees, teamwork, finding compromises, Sahra Wagenknecht is not good at that.

Wagenknecht party for the European elections?

Political scientist Reuschenbach considers a split in the Left Party to be quite possible: “The relationship between the party and Sahra Wagenknecht and her supporters is now totally broken, so a split really doesn’t seem out of the question. There are currently indications that such a party could run for the first time in the European elections in 2024. If they are successful, they would be entitled to funds that could be used to run in the 2025 federal elections.”

In fact, one hears from those who long for a secession that the founding of a party would only become an option in the course of the next year. In the fall of 2023, for example. Then there would still be sufficient lead time for the European elections, in which there is no five percent hurdle.

Who would go with Wagenknecht?

That may be pie in the sky, but the current question is who would leave the parliamentary group together with Wagenknecht. Because the left needs at least 36 MPs to form a parliamentary group in the current Bundestag. It currently consists of 39 MPs. If four MEPs left, group status would be lost. Employees would have to be terminated, the right to speak and money would be gone. “That would be the beginning of the end,” says parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch. And immediately adds: “But that will not be.”

A split in the middle is “nonsense,” says Bartsch. If anything, there would be a numerically small split. “No left-wing mayor will resign, and none of the countries where we have government responsibility is at risk,” he says with conviction.

However, Bartsch also sees the danger that there could be a new competing party. He also urges unity and reminds that it is not so easy to found a party. “It can go wrong without Sahra Wagenknecht. But a Wagenknecht party definitely goes wrong.”

Bartsch has known Wagenknecht for a long time. In 2017 they were the top candidates for the left and jointly headed the parliamentary group from 2015 to 2019. They still have their offices next to each other in the Bundestag.

“Progressive Left” vs. “Popular Left”

Wagenknecht is not one who classifies and does committee work away from the limelight. She polarizes. When asked why she describes the Greens as the “most dangerous party” on her YouTube channel or why she says in the Bundestag that Germany has started an “economic war against Russia,” she replies: “Because that’s how I see it. Then I have to say that too.”

Those in the faction behind Wagenknecht see themselves pushed out of the party and faction. “They want to throw us out,” says one MP with certainty. “They” are MPs and party members who believe that Wagenknecht no longer belongs in the left. This weekend this group wants to meet in Berlin. They call themselves the “Progressive Left”. It seems almost amusing that a call by the Wagenknecht followers is called “Popular Left” and that some get confused with the designations.

Camp battle for heads and course

But the fight between the pro-Wagenknecht people and the contra-Wagenknecht camp is getting harder. There is talk of tidying up, of even cleaning. That you no longer talk to each other and experience consequences “if you’re not on course”. And the party course is definitely not what Wagenknecht thinks and says.

2022 seems to mark the end of a difficult camp coexistence within the left. Those who speak out for Wagenknecht accuse the others of having lost contact with the base, with the people who might vote for leftists. “They confuse their Twitter bubble with the population. In some districts, not even half the people go to the polls, that can’t be the case,” says one who could well imagine a Wagenknecht party.

Party leadership is tight-lipped

The party leadership does not like to talk about the subject. One is in talks with Wagenknecht, says party leader Martin Schirdewan tight-lipped. He did not want to comment on the content.

It is well known what Wagenknecht thinks of Schirdewan: “The wrong choice,” she tweeted after his election as party leader in June. He, on the other hand, thinks it is wrong to give her speaking time in the Bundestag. The decisions of the party congress speak for him, and their great popularity speaks for them.

She knows that if she went, she wouldn’t go alone. Anyone who asks around in the group learns that there could be up to ten MPs who went with Wagenknecht. Even if it’s only half, that would be the sure end of the faction.

Wagenknecht does not believe that the left will pull itself together again and inspire people. She speaks of a political “void.” She wants to mobilize non-voters and win back AfD voters. She could also sit in the Bundestag for another three years, go on talk shows and write books. But she doesn’t sound like that.