The gravedigger of the left, me? Sahra Wagenknecht wants nothing to do with the plight of her former party. She presents her new project as a sheer necessity.
Sahra Wagenknecht is worried. About the country, the people, yes, even about the Left Party. “I tried wherever possible to anchor a different course in the left,” she asserts. She failed with that. “It’s time to draw conclusions.”
Well, finally. Wagenknecht is out. She is leaving the Left and wants to create a new party – basically this has been known for a long time, but she has not yet said it publicly. In this respect, her appearance in front of the assembled capital’s press on Monday morning in Berlin also marks the official end of a long impasse, perhaps even the most painful resignation from the party in German history.
The separation was foreseeable for a long time. Very long. Wagenknecht repeatedly fell foul of the party leadership. After she gave up responsibility for the Bundestag faction, which she led from 2015 to 2019, for health reasons, she shifted to the role of critical commentator. Shot against the party course, either in social, climate or migration policy. Or railed against the “lifestyle” left and their supposed climate and gender madness.
Alone: As early as 2018, some suspected that Wagenknecht wanted to do her own thing with her “Get Up” collection movement. This year things became threatening for the Left Party. After ongoing speculation, which Wagenknecht himself had fueled, the party leadership decided in June: “The future of the Left is a future without Sahra Wagenknecht.”
This has now also been documented by Wagenknecht. On Monday she will present her plans at the federal press conference. Wagenknecht has four colleagues with her, including her close confidant Amira Mohamed Ali. The current parliamentary group leader of the Left Party (yes, really) chairs the “Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht” association, which is supposed to get the new party off the ground by the beginning of 2024. While Mohamed Ali reports why the step was inevitable – the erring left! –, Wagenknecht scans the rows of journalists. She smiles contentedly, her look revealing a certain satisfaction.
The Left Party absolutely did not want to follow their left-conservative course: left in social policy, but right in social policy. Now her former party is on the brink of loss of importance. She will lose her parliamentary group status in the Bundestag at the latest when Wagenknecht and company have launched the new party. It’s your own fault, is apparently Wagenknecht’s analysis.
Left on the edge: There’s nothing you can do about it
Wagenknecht does not see that it could play a certain role in the Left Party’s misery. She says she very much regrets “that we got into this situation.” The left no longer has “any political support,” that’s just the situation. But that has nothing to do with the debate about the new party; you shouldn’t confuse cause and effect, says Wagenknecht: Only when the Left Party went downhill did “others” think about a new party.
It almost sounds as if Sahra Wagenknecht actually has nothing to do with the “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance”.
The namesake admits a strong focus on her figure, but wants this to be seen as a temporary solution: the club and party have to establish themselves first, after all they want to take part in the EU and state elections in East Germany next year. Vulgo: With the name Wagenknecht on the ballot papers, the project could be much more promising.
Finances are also an important factor. Donations are needed to finance the future party and its structures – the association was also founded for this purpose. Wagenknecht and her colleagues repeatedly campaign for support, even reading out the donation address online to the assembled capital’s press. “The only right website where you can find information about the club,” says treasurer and treasurer Ralph Suikat to be on the safe side. Later, Wagenknecht adds that the support of all those people who want the party is “urgently” needed.
Who could that be, where should it go politically?
“Things cannot continue the way things are going,” says Wagenknecht in a tone that is intended to convey concern for the country and its people, but also criticism of “probably the worst government” in the history of the Federal Republic. She promotes a “new economic policy of reason” and the “preservation” of economic strengths. That is “our first and most important goal,” says Wagenknecht. However, “blind, haphazard eco-activism” is not one of the new party’s primary goals. That would only make people’s lives more expensive and would not benefit the climate at all.
Wagenknecht considers the sole focus on renewable energies to be a serious mistake and therefore also wants to rely on pipeline gas in order to lower prices. She apparently doesn’t care much that it would come from a Russian warlord. Wagenknecht wants to create peace without weapons, is promoting a negotiated solution to the war in Ukraine, and the NATO military alliance is openly questioning it. She was sharply criticized for this. Now Wagenknecht complains about an alleged pressure to conform, a “new political authoritarianism” in the country that wants to educate people or regulate their language. She obviously sees herself as a victim of the alleged language and opinion guards.
Protest election without dirty hands
It is the sound of populism, of simple answers to complex issues, that has made the AfD strong – and from which Wagenknecht also expects to gain traction for her new project. When a journalist asked her about possible collaboration with the extreme right, Wagenknecht grinned: She was expecting the question. Of course, she says, there will be no common cause with the AfD. They want to be a “reputable address” for all those who have migrated to the political fringes out of anger and desperation. Being able to vote for protest without getting your hands dirty: That is probably Wagenknecht’s calculation.
However, there is a risk that political hotheads will try to hijack the project. They want to “grow in a controlled manner,” says Christian Leye, who is also leaving the Left and is on the board of the Wagenknecht Association. “Slayers of fortune, careerists and people with certain political views” should not undermine the new party; they will keep an eye on that. Wagenknecht also emphasizes the requirement “that the wrong people don’t come.” They don’t say how this is to be prevented. Disappointed voters – be they from the Greens or the CSU – would generally be welcomed.
Has she now put the final nail in the left’s coffin? “The Left is not our political opponent,” says Wagenknecht. The party will now set itself up “independently”. “You can wish her success.” Man? She doesn’t say whether she does it herself.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
