The new leftist party created in Germany by Sahra Wagenknecht, a charismatic political and media figure in the leftist sphere and with great traction in the east of the country, was launched at a founding congress in Berlin, in which the aforementioned highlighted key points of a program that, in some aspects, coincides with the postulates of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The new formation, provisionally called the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW, its acronym in German) and subtitled Reason and Justice, is a split from the leftist party Die Linke, which the founder and nine other deputies left last October. The new BSW party has an anti-immigration, pro-Russian, Europhobic and defense of fossil fuels stance.
The newborn BSW seems destined to shake up Germany’s party system if, as the polls suggest, it reaches 7% support at the federal level. His foundation deals a probably fatal blow to Die Linke, which now scores at 4% in polls, that is, below the minimum threshold of 5% to obtain parliamentary representation, which would expel the party from the Bundestag in the autumn general elections of the 2025.
However, analysts warn that the bite would also affect the social democratic SPD and the Greens, and would contribute through spectrum fragmentation to making government coalitions more difficult, as has already happened since the AfD entered the Bundestag in 2017.
Wagenknecht, co-president of the BSW, yesterday called for negotiations with Moscow to end the war in Ukraine, and for Germany to stop supplying weapons to Kyiv. “We are delivering weapons to Ukraine for a victory in which, unfortunately, even the Ukrainian generals no longer believe; “This war must end quickly through negotiations,” he said to the applause of the first 450 members, gathered significantly in the Kosmos, a former cinema of the communist GDR located on Karl-Marx-Allee, the great avenue in East Berlin. . More winks: the leader chose to wear red for the occasion.
Wagenknecht accused the coalition government of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals of Chancellor Olaf Scholz of promoting the rise of the AfD, the second party in preferences in the polls, for not addressing the issues that, in his opinion, really concern citizens.
“Promoting peace, that is being extreme right. The defense of farms, extreme right. Criticism of school closures and pressure to conform during the pandemic, extreme right. The demand for limitations on immigration and concern for parallel Islamist, far-right societies – he listed. And after years of hammering people with the idea that everything reasonable is far-right, they marvel that a party that is far-right wins the debate.” According to Wagenknecht, “this is not the result of a particularly brilliant policy of the AfD, but of the wrong policy of the government in Berlin.”
The speech, which in fact contains themes defended by the AfD, clearly seeks to fish for votes among voters who think this way and are therefore attracted to the AfD, especially in the east of the country, where Wagenkencht – born 54 years ago in Jena – and the post-communist left retain their prestige, and where the extreme right has its fiefdom.
The new BSW party is looking ahead to this year’s elections: in June, European elections, and in September, regional elections in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, three eastern länder in which, according to polls, the AfD would be the leader. most voted party, with percentages of more than 30%.
The program for the European women was also adopted at the congress. The text charges against “the obsession of the EU technocracy with regulation” and against its climate policy. The BSW – whose other co-leader is Amira Mohamed Ali – wants the indefinite use of combustion engines and for Germany to import oil and gas from Russia again. The two heads of the list are: Fabio de Masi, one of those who left Die Linke, and Thomas Geisel, former social democrat.
