Ramelow accuses Wagenknecht of caliphate methods

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Left against BSW
Ramelow accuses Wagenknecht of caliphate methods

Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (left) and Sahra Wagenknecht

© Britta Pedersen / DPA

Martin Debes

Trouble between Bodo Ramelow and Sahra Wagenknecht’s party: Thuringia’s Prime Minister attacks the BSW – and accuses the alliance of damaging party democracy.

The Thuringian Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Left) accuses the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) of breaking with basic democratic principles. “With the organization focused on one person, party democracy is reduced to absurdity,” says Ramelow star. The BSW regional association in Thuringia, for example, is not allowed to accept members, but is allowed to submit a list. “40 members decide, determine and vote,” said Ramelow. “And everyone else in the waiting list can exercise their membership rights later when there is nothing left to distribute.”

Ramelow warned: “Here, an organization that claims the party privilege is deliberately not opening itself up to its supporters.” Decisions will be made centrally in Berlin “as before”. In the direction of Wagenknecht, who once led the Left faction in the Bundestag, he asked: “Is this an oligarchy or even a caliphate?”

In surveys in some eastern German states, the BSW has immediately become a competitor to the other parties. Ramelow is once again the Left Party’s top candidate for the state elections in Thuringia on September 1st. The designated BSW top candidate Katja Wolf was a member of his state parliamentary group until 2012 and then served as mayor of Eisenach for the Left. In a current survey in Thuringia, both parties are at 16 percent and are therefore on equal terms.

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