analysis
Left parliamentary group leader Mohamed Ali throws down – with encouragement from the Left Party’s biggest critic from its own ranks, Wagenknecht. Is the parliamentary group now breaking up completely?
The faction leader throws in – and she doesn’t do it quietly, but uses the opportunity for a harsh settlement with the party leadership. Amira Mohamed Ali took over as the successor to Sahra Wagenknecht. Three and a half years ago she started with the task of pacifying the left-wing faction. Well, it’s obvious: she didn’t succeed.
Mohamed Ali is a politician of a completely different breed than Wagenknecht: Before the lawyer from Oldenburg became the leader of the Left Party in the Bundestag, hardly anyone knew the then spokeswoman for animal welfare. And even if that has changed after years at the top of the parliamentary group, Mohamed Ali hasn’t really gotten through. She remained the woman for the second row.
But she never made a secret of her closeness to Wagenknecht’s politics. She now writes herself that although it is the task of a parliamentary group leader to “support and represent the course of the party, especially the party leadership, in public,” this task has become increasingly difficult for her and “now has become impossible”.
closing ranks with Wagenknecht
The statement made by Mohamed Ali may have been coordinated with Wagenknecht. For months, Wagenknecht has been writing and saying in guest comments and talk shows what the group leader gives as reasons for withdrawing from the group leadership. The solidarity of the two left-wing politicians, the Wagenknecht opposite the, is correspondingly clear ARD Capital Studio To put it this way: “The fact that Amira Mohamed Ali, who as parliamentary group leader always stood for balance, compromise and understanding, is now giving up shows that unfortunately there is less and less room for sensible politics on the left.”
The course taken by the party leadership, primarily to woo young climate activists and to neglect the problems of ordinary citizens who fear for their future in view of the disastrous traffic light policy, will lead to further electoral defeats and, in the future, make the left a meaningless splinter party, according to Wagenknecht . “A selectable offer for economic reason and social justice would be urgently needed, especially in today’s situation.”
That’s still not the announcement for a new party under Wagenknecht’s leadership – but it sounds very much like it.
Another coffin nail
The left-wing parliamentary group has only existed since the last election because the left won three direct mandates. Sören Pellmann from Leipzig won one of them. He, too, clearly criticizes the party leadership: “The decision by the party executive to no longer want large parts – and I would put them at a third of the membership – in the party is a call for division and that is not appropriate for a party executive .”
What does this mean for the party? It’s another nail in the coffin for the left. A split seems inevitable. Even if the second parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch tries to downplay the jump of his co-chairs as unsurprising and swears that one must please return to substantive politics.
Reckoning with your own party
Other influential and loud MPs make it clear that they are building on a Wagenknecht project. “A party would have great, great opportunities not only to keep the AfD small, but also to get into the Bundestag or the European Parliament,” says former party leader Klaus Ernst. “If it came to the point that such a project was founded, then I would definitely be there.”
Ernst would not be alone. Seven to eight members of the left-wing faction, which is small anyway, show more or less clearly that they would leave the faction with Wagenknecht. And just three “apostates” were enough for the left to lose its faction status. That in turn would mean less speaking time in Parliament, less money and staff, and overall even less political influence.
Therefore, Mohamed Ali’s declared withdrawal is more than a private decision. It is a reckoning with his own party – and the beginning of the end of the left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag.