She was on the left for decades, but now Sahra Wagenknecht is going her own way. A new association is preparing to found its own party.
The politician Sahra Wagenknecht leaves the Left and founds her own party. “We have decided to found a new party because we are convinced that the way things are currently going cannot continue,” said Wagenknecht on Monday in Berlin. “Otherwise we probably won’t recognize our country in ten years.” The party is scheduled to be founded at the beginning of 2024 and run for the European elections in June 2024.
Until it is founded, Wagenknecht and her colleagues with a mandate want to remain in the left-wing parliamentary group, as they made clear. Wagenknecht also justified this with consideration for employees in the group and an “orderly transition”. The 54-year-old added that the left-wing parliamentary group will no longer be able to exist from January at the latest.
The group only has 38 MPs. If more than two of them quit or are expelled, they lose their faction status and can only continue as a group. The Left leadership, however, has called on Wagenknecht and her supporters to hand over their mandates.
Preparations for a new party
Wagenknecht had been considering founding the party for months. A few weeks ago, her supporters registered the association “Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht – For Reason and Justice”. This should now prepare the founding of the party and collect donations. The chairwoman is the previous parliamentary group leader of the Left, Amira Mohamed Ali. The managing director is the former managing director of the Left in North Rhine-Westphalia, Lukas Schön, treasurer of the millionaire Ralph Suikat.
The association “Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht – For Reason and Justice” was founded to prepare a new party,” it said in a written statement. In Germany, people have been “governing bypassing the wishes of the majority” for years. Instead of rewarding performance, the money is redistributed from the hardworking to the top ten thousand. Lobby requests would be served and public coffers would be emptied. An “authoritarian political style” is complained about. Industry and medium-sized businesses are at stake.
“Many people have lost trust in the state and no longer feel represented by any of the existing parties,” the statement continued. Wagenknecht once again sharply criticized the traffic light coalition, which ruled Germany poorly.
Wagenknecht’s party is to run in East German state elections
Wagenknecht wants to run her new party in the three East German state elections next year. “We are aiming to run in the three federal states, but whether we can really do it in all three will of course depend on how the state associations are set up by then and which candidates we have locally,” said the 54-year-old on Monday in Berlin. She emphasized that the decision ultimately rests with the newly founded party.
Next year state parliaments will be elected in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg. In Thuringia, according to an Insa survey from July, a Wagenknecht party would have the potential to become the strongest force in the Free State – especially at the expense of the AfD and the Left.
Reactions
Bundestag member Christian Leye said that Wagenknecht and her supporters decided to found the party because “politically we have no other choice.” He spoke of ill-conceived policies, bad schools and dilapidated bridges. “The country has been ruined, and now it’s not just the facade that’s crumbling,” said Leye.
Many people with low incomes no longer feel represented. The new party wants to “straighten their backs” for them. Many stopped voting at all. “We have a democracy problem,” said Leye. The new party is aiming for a slow build-up and wants to establish itself in the long term.
According to an Insa survey for “Bild am Sonntag”, 27 percent of respondents in Germany could imagine voting for a Wagenknecht party. However, election surveys are generally subject to uncertainty. The Left party leadership wants to take action against Wagenknecht’s colleagues. Party exclusion proceedings are to be initiated against those involved in the BSW association.
Kühnert sees the party calmly: “one-woman opposition”
SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert is calm about left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht’s party founding plans. “Sahra Wagenknecht has been a very established one-woman opposition for 30 years,” he said on Monday on RTL/ntv’s ” Frühstart ” program. “But there is not a single political measure that is linked to their political activity where something has become better for people.” In addition, Wagenknecht is rarely present in the Bundestag. If she pursues her party project with just as little commitment, he has little to worry about, said Kühnert.
“It is not surprising that a party that has not yet been founded is always a bit of a jack-of-all-trades – everyone can project their hopes onto it,” explained the SPD politician. So far, however, it is clear what the party is against. “But at some point a new party will have to say what it actually stands for, and then things usually become very different.”
Bartsch: Ten left-wing MPs who left
The chairman of the left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Dietmar Bartsch, has confirmed that ten of the 38 MPs have left the party and at the same time want to remain a member of the parliamentary group. “Our group will decide on this confidently and calmly,” said Bartsch in Berlin. He called the move by the ten MPs “irresponsible and unacceptable”.