The European elections were a success for the BSW. The alliance will also play an important role in the upcoming state elections – and poses a conflict of conscience for the CDU in particular.
Martin Schirdewan was calm: she should just do it. She will see what she gets out of it. “I don’t think it will be successful, even if there is a prominent name on it,” the party leader of the Left Party predicted of comrade Sahra Wagenknecht and her new party. That was last October.
How wrong one can be. With top candidate Schirdewan, the Left Party’s share of the European elections has halved to 2.7 percent. People’s Party of the East? That was once upon a time.
Just ignore the BSW?
Wagenknecht is completely different. Her party, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW for short, received 6.2 percent of the vote. Only six months after its founding, it will have six representatives in the EU Parliament. The CDU and SPD in particular must now answer the question of how they will deal with Wagenknecht’s troops. Elections will be held in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg in the autumn. It is already clear how difficult it will be to forge stable governments if the AfD remains so strong. Simply ignoring the BSW? Not an option.
The election result shows what polls have suggested: In eastern Germany, the BSW is now the third strongest force everywhere except Berlin. “The alliance will not disappear overnight,” says political scientist Constantin Wurthmann, who researches Wagenknecht’s party.
Wagenknecht and her party have come – and want to stay.
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.
