2024-01-08 16:28:33
The Sahra Wagenknecht alliance was founded. This year the new party wants to run in four elections. Before that happens, many bureaucratic hurdles still have to be overcome.
The two party leaders: Amira Mohamed Ali and Sahra Wagenknecht.
Kira Hofmann / Imago
It is a historic day for Sahra Wagenknecht. The former left-wing politician sits in a bright red costume in front of the blue wall at the Berlin federal press conference. Wagenknecht has nothing less in mind than to completely turn the German party landscape upside down. This Monday, following months of announcements, a new party was finally founded that bears her name: Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht – Reason and Justice (BSW).
The namesake forms a dual leadership with the former left-wing parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, Amira Mohamed Ali. The new party wants to run in the European elections in June and in three state elections in East Germany in the fall. Until then, Wagenknecht and her colleagues still have to overcome a few hurdles, not just organizational ones.
There were 44 founding members, says Wagenknecht. These included former members of the Left Party and other democratic parties, doctors, professors, entrepreneurs and theologians. Wagenknecht presents the former left-wing MP and financial expert Fabio De Masi and the former mayor of Düsseldorf Thomas Geisel, who only left the SPD the day before following forty years of membership, as the top candidates for the European elections. Wagenknecht managed to pull off a surprise with both personalities. “The political competitors are nervous, and they have every reason to be,” says De Masi.
Party membership is made difficult
For Wagenknecht, who says she is having a hard time with organizational issues, there is still a lot to do before the party is on the ballot. For months, the leadership group has been dealing with the legal intricacies of party law and is working on statutes and financial regulations.
A party needs an arbitration committee, a program committee and of course members. But according to Wagenknecht there is a luxury problem. There are many interested parties who want to become members. But joining the party shouldn’t be that easy. “We have to be careful that we don’t fall into the trap of young parties,” says Wagenknecht. That’s why we pay close attention to who becomes a member.
This is intended to prevent troublemakers, troublemakers and political self-promoters from overrunning the new party and exploiting it for their own purposes. There should be no direct switch from the AfD to the Wagenknecht party. In an initial batch, 450 members were accepted, reports Wagenknecht.
First of all, the official founding party conference is planned for the end of January in a former cinema in Berlin. There is no developed party program yet, only the founding statutes of the BSW association as the party’s predecessor.
Thousands of signatures need to be collected
In order to even be able to run, the party’s supporters first have to fan out and collect signatures – 4,000 for admission to the European elections and 1,000 each to be able to run in the elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg. The signature lists must then be handed over to the federal returning officer or the state returning officer. Only then can candidates be nominated. “I am very confident that I will be able to run in all East German elections with complete state lists,” says Wagenknecht.
The goals are ambitious. Wagenknecht hopes for a BSW faction with “reasonable strength” in the newly elected Bundestag. De Masi goes even further: “We aim to become a people’s party in the medium term.”
The views of the already known new party members are also drifting apart in terms of content. Instead of clear positions, Wagenknecht presents the usual programmatic vagueness. “There is no longer a party that advocates good pensions, decent wages and social justice,” says the party leader. The war once morest Ukraine should end and a policy of détente should return. Wagenknecht just doesn’t say how this should happen.
Instead, she is rhetorically working on the traffic light coalition and its “disastrous balance sheet”. The government is gambling away the future with incompetence and arrogance. A “return of reason into politics” is necessary. De Masi describes the traffic light coalition as “the AfD’s harvest helpers”.
No Russian money
Former IT entrepreneur and self-made millionaire Ralph Suikat is responsible for finances. Around 1.4 million euros are said to have already been received in donations, the majority of which are small donations. That seems like a lot, but it’s not enough for four election campaigns.
The media had reported that the new Wagenknecht party would also be financed with donations from Russia. Suikat and Wagenknecht denied the allegations. “We received a total of 75 euros in donations that provide a reference to Russia,” Suikat assured in an interview with the NZZ.
Surveys show that Wagenknecht and her party have a lot of potential. According to a Yougov survey, one in three voters in East Germany can imagine voting for Wagenknecht and her colleagues. In an Insa survey for “Bild” in December, the BSW came to 12 percent nationwide. This would mean that the new party would lure voters away from the AfD in particular.
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