The left has had setbacks and division. But now it is registering an unusually large number of party memberships – there were more than 1,100 online in January.
According to the party, 1,110 new members joined the Left online in January. Of these, 905 have come since January 10th, when the Correctiv research into a meeting of radical right-wingers with politicians from the AfD and the CDU as well as members of the Values Union in Potsdam was published. The party gave the numbers to the news portal t-online. They are also available to the dpa.
This only includes online entries, but not entries by other means or exits. This leaves it unclear how many members the Left has gained on balance. The annual balance sheet for 2023 is not yet available either. The party only said that last year there were an average of 335 entries per month. According to the current status, there were a total of 2,951 in the last quarter of 2023.
The party also attributes the comparatively high number to the fact that Sahra Wagenknecht’s departure in October defused a long-standing dispute over the direction of the party. “The Left is once again the central attraction of the social left,” said the acting Federal Managing Director Katina Schubert. She is pleased about the “wave of entry” that has increased again after the revelations about the Potsdam right-wing meeting.
Source: Stern
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