The German leftist party Die Linke (The Left) seeks to rebuild itself after the traumatic split of a sector led by one of its most important figures, deputy Sahra Wagenknecht, who announced at the end of October the founding of a new party. For its part, Die Linke has dedicated a three-day federal congress – scheduled long before the split – to lick its wounds and prepare for the European elections in June 2024.
The breakup seriously jeopardizes the future of this formation, whose electoral results have not stopped declining since 2009, because Wagenknecht has a great pull in the eastern länder, territories of the former communist GDR, some of which hold elections in September of the year Next: Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony. Die Linke has its nursery of votes in those länder, now to be shared with Wagenknecht’s party, which will be formally born in January.
At the congress held in Augsburg, co-president Janine Wissler urged “to renew our party, open it and modify it” so that it can “give a voice to those who do not feel sufficiently heard.” As a first strategy, it was approved to present the co-president of the party and MEP Martin Schirdewan as the head of the list for the European elections, and the maritime rescue activist for migrants in the Mediterranean Carola Rackete, captain of the Sea Watch ship, as an independent.
When he left, Wagenknecht took 9 other deputies with him, so Die Linke was forced last week to dissolve its parliamentary group, as it no longer met the requirements. In Germany there are two types of grouping. The important one is the Fraktion (the equivalent of a parliamentary group in Spain), for which the seats held by the party must represent 5% of the chamber, but there is also a smaller format, the Gruppe (group), for which it is enough to have five deputies, although its constitution must be approved by the entire Bundestag. The group has fewer parliamentary rights and receives less public funding.
Die Linke had 38 deputies, and with the split led by Wagenknecht it has lost 10. Now both wings will ask the Bundestag to form separate groups. “A group of 28 united deputies is better than a group of 38 divided deputies,” defended the until now head of the group, Dietmar Bartsch, last Wednesday when the dissolution was announced, which, Bartsch insisted, “is in no way the end of the left.”
Sahra Wagenknecht, 54, maintains that “many people no longer feel represented by any party,” and that her future formation will offer that answer, with a combination of leftist economic policy and a restrictive approach to immigration. In recent times, the leader has distinguished herself for her pro-Russian stance.
Analysts agree in describing Wagenknecht’s initiative as populist and maintain that it harms both Die Linke and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which also has its fiefdom in the east of the country. “Of course we will not make common cause with the AfD,” Wagenknecht said when presenting his project in October in Berlin. We are launching a new party so that all the people who are now thinking about voting for the AfD or who have already done so out of anger or desperation but not because they are right-wing, now have a serious discourse at their disposal.”
In the last elections in 2021, Die Linke barely entered the Bundestag (lower house of Parliament). Despite not having reached the necessary minimum of 5% of votes (he garnered 4.9%), he managed to enter thanks to a clause that grants representation if three deputies are achieved by direct election in their respective electoral districts.
In Germany, each voter casts two votes: one for the party list and one for the district candidate. This electoral system is under review, and if it is modified by eliminating the three-district clause – as the Government of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals wants –, the Wagenknecht split would practically condemn Die Linke to disappear from the Bundestag in the autumn elections of 2025 The first post-split polls give him 4% support.
Die Linke was founded in 2007, but part of its origin lies in the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the only communist party in the GDR. After reunification in 1990, the heirs of the SED founded the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), which in 2007 merged with social democratic dissidents led by Oskar Lafontaine, and thus Die Linke was born. Lafontaine, 80, Wagenknecht’s husband since December 2014, left Die Linke in March 2022, a few days after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
