Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht

Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, officially known as BSW—For Reason and Justice, is a registered association created on 26 September 2023 by members of the German political party The Left for the purposes of founding a new political party. The plans for the new party were presented at a federal press conference on 23 October 2023 by Bundestag members Sahra Wagenknecht, Amira Mohamed Ali, and Christian Leye, The Left in North Rhine-Westphalia former managing director Lukas Schön, and the public administration specialist Ralph Suikat.
Amira Mohamed Ali announced that she, Wagenknecht, Leye, and seven other members of the Bundestag faction would leave The Left and form part of the newly-founded BSW; they remain part of The Left's parliamentary group (Fraktion) and maintain parliamentary privileges. The main goal of the association is to build a structure for a new party led by Wagenknecht. The association is sceptical of both green politics and support for Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian War. According to various poll, between 12 and 20 percent (with as high as 32% in eastern Germany) of Germans said they would vote for BSW.
History
Background
Wagenknecht, who has been described as a prominent left-wing politician, was a member of The Left and its predecessors, such as the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and the Party of Democratic Socialism; her political positions are generally identified as left-wing populist. Although she was co-leader of The Left from 2015 to 2019, conflict with other party members on topics, such as the German refugee policy, COVID-19 vaccination, and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, had led to speculation since 2021 that she would leave The Left and found a new political party.
Speculation increased in the run-up to the 2023 Hessian state election and the 2023 Bavarian state election on 8 October, in which The Left failed to reach the 5% electoral threshold while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged in both. The success of the AfD led Wagenknecht to claim that a left-wing populist party could compete with the AfD while also respecting the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany.
Association registration
The association, based in Karlsruhe, was entered in the association register at the district court in Mannheim on 26 September 2023. In mid-October, over fifty members of The Left submitted an application for Wagenknecht's exclusion from the party in order to prevent her from building a new party with the resources of The Left.
Members of the party and political commentators blamed the ongoing speculation about the founding of a new party and the resulting breakup of the Left for its poor results in the state elections. Martin Schirdewan, federal chairman of The Left and co-chair of The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL, declared that the party would expel members who committed to the founding of a rival party by BSW. The Federal Executive Board of The Left passed a resolution of incompatibility (Unvereinbarkeitsbeschluss) with BSW.
Shortly after the press conference was announced, a fake website was registered under www.bswpartei.de that presented itself as the official website of the party, using copyrighted imagery and Wagenknecht's office address in its imprint. Wangenknecht would file a criminal report against the website, which is now offline. It is still unclear who created it.
Political positions
The political positions of BSW include further restrictions on immigration, a plan for deglobalization, opposition to green politics, ending military aid to Ukraine, and a negotiated settlement to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Wagenknecht considers BSW to stand primarily in opposition to The Left and Alliance 90/The Greens, which she describes as representing "weird minorities" instead of "normal people". BSW has been variously described as populist, economically socialist, cultural conservative, and pro-Russia in foreign policy, the latter of which Wagenknecht has denied. In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Wagenknecht stated that her party is "obviously not right-wing", instead being left-wing in the sense of "striving for more social justice, good wages, decent pensions" and "a foreign policy that returns to the tradition of détente instead of relying more and more on the military card".
BSW supports economic interventionism and greater social benefits, which are to be financed by the wealthy, while assets and inheritances should be spared. Wagenknecht published a five-page manifesto that focused on issues like deteriorating bridges and roads, bad mobile phone reception, slow internet, and overwhelmed administrations. Despite the criticism against the Greens and green politics, the manifesto echoed the industrial strategy presented by Robert Habeck, emphasising innovation and BSW's commitment to social justice, progress, and economic growth. Wagenknecht dismissed her critics saying she wanted to turn the economy into that of East Germany, and instead is an advocate of ordoliberalism, which supports a fair market economy, and strong social policies; some economists questioned those plans, citing a perceived contradiction about how such policies can function together or coexist. Additionally, BSW's combination of socialist economic policies with more conservatives ones on socio-cultural issues attracted both support and scepticism.
BSW is critical of sending weapons to Ukraine and its supporters in the Russo-Ukrainian War, and blames NATO for escalating the conflict. Amidst the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, Wagenknecht described the Gaza Strip as an "open-air prison". Wagenknecht rejected left-wing as a label on the grounds that the term is now considered elitist, saying that "many people today associate them with completely different content", and that BSW would appeal to a "broad spectrum of potential voters". Wagenknecht felt that The Left had become left-liberal and what she called "left-lifestyle" rather than left-wing, and accused progressives in The Left of being "too focused on diet, pronouns, and the perception of racism" as opposed to "poverty and an ever-growing gap between rich and poor."
Descriptions by the media and political science
The party has been described as left-wing, or far-left, while being closer to the right-wing on socio-cultural issues, such as immigration and gender diversity; this combination of stances has been compared to those of the Socialist Party in the Netherlands and the Communist Party of Greece. Sarah Wagner, a postdoctoral researcher in political science at the University of Mannheim who has studied Wagenknecht's political rise, commented: "We can't really say exactly how many people align themselves with left-conservative values. But what we can say is that it's a significant group. We have never seen this combination in a party in Germany before."
BSW has been described as a left-wing populist and left-conservative party, the latter label being used in part due to its left-leaning economic positions and having right-leaning social and cultural positions, which have been described by Wurthmann as being popular among anti-establishment and right-leaning voters. In response to descriptions of the party as far right or socially right-wing, political scientist Thorsten Faas said that Wagenknecht was still a politician with a left-wing profile, even within the Left Party, and commented: "I would be a bit cautious about that, because it is of course a clearly left-wing project. This is certainly not a politician who represents a right-wing position."
Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk described the party as a left-wing one with social justice at its core but with social positions similar to those of right-wing parties. Die Zeit described BSW as "a highly populist party" and termed the party's ideology "conservative-tinted left-wing populism", given their "restrictive stance on refugee and migration issues, as well as a social policy whose actual reference point is the nation state and a pacifism that does not shy away from defending autocratic states like Vladimir Putin's Russia", and "rejection of everything perceived as the expression of woke metropolitan hipsterism". Münchner Merkur labelled the party "national and socialist", writing: "For Wagenknecht, nationalism no longer seems to be the evil enemy, but a means and an end to mobilise people for her kind of socialism." Similarly, Die Tageszeitung described the party's ideology as "socialism with a right-wing code" and placed it within the context of a blend of nationalists and left-wing conservatives. Der Spiegel said there "could be a gap in the market for [Wagenknecht's] mix of anti-Americanism, Putin apologism, socialism, migration scepticism, as well as her openness to conspiracy theories".
Parliamentary members
Ten members of the Bundestag (all from The Left) joined BSW at its announcement. Alexander King, a member of the Berlin House of Representatives for The Left, joined BSW on 27 October 2023.
Polling
In 2023, amid speculations of Wagenknecht exiting The Left, various polls were performed to gauge support for a Wagenknecht-led party. About the party's political prospects, Wolfgang Schroeder, a political scientist from the University of Kassel, said that half The Left's vote share could go to BSW, which would mean The Left would not enter the Bundestag at the next German federal election. Conversely, research by Constantin Wurthmann, a political scientist at the University of Erlangen, and political scientists Sarah Wagner and Jan-Philipp Tomeczek found that BSW could also hurt the far-right. Wurthmann, who stated that Wagenknecht was "socio-culturally on the right", commented: "Our data shows that Wagenknecht's approval is higher among AfD voters than among Die Linke voters. ... [She] is liked ... by people who consider themselves conservative, are critical of immigration, and partially come from the east."
In October 2023, after the announcment of BSW, further polls gauged support for Wagenknecht's new party. A survey of voters for T-Online found The Left, AfD, and FDP voters, as well as non-voters and minor party voters, most receptive to BSW, while CDU/CSU, SPD, and especially Green voters were largely opposed. According to an Insa poll, around 12% of Germans said they would vote for BSW. A poll by Civey indicated that 20% of Germans could "imagine in principle" voting for a hypothetical party led by Wagenknecht. The poll also found that supporters of the Left Party and the AfD were the ones to be most open to voting for such a party, the figure being as high as 32% in eastern Germany. A poll by Bild found that 27 percent of voters would consider voting for Wagenknecht's party. Manfred Güllner—whose polling firm, the Forsa Institute, conducted a poll about Wagenknecht's party—said that BSW has as much a chance of attracting voters from traditional parties as it does of attracting those who vote on the right.
Reactions
The Left
Many members and activists within the party were relieved that Wagenknecht was leaving after months of hinting and speculation. Party members criticized BSW members of Bundestag for not returning back their mandates they had won for The Left. Some politicans of The Left expressed disappointment at the behavior of Wagenknecht's followers. Schirdewan said that he was "personally disappointed" with the defectors, whom he said had damaged the party, and called on them to return their seats in the Bundestag to The Linke. The Left vice-chairman Lorenz Gösta Beutin described Wagenknecht's formation of the party as motivated by personal financial gain: "The millionaire Wagenknecht is founding a party for Wagenknecht in order to collect corporate donations for a Wagenknecht party."
The council of Left Youth Solid, the youth wing of The Left, was pleased with Wagenknecht's exit from the party, stating: "Our fight has finally paid off: we were longingly awaiting her departure and called on the party to kick her out. The party can now begin the process of renewal." The Left deputy parliamentary group leader Gesine Lötzsch said that a party founded by Wagenknecht should not be viewed as an opponent or enemy but as competition. She said they would look closely at how this party develops and what positions it takes up from the left. She added: "The real danger that I see is that our country is moving more and more to the right. If The Left parliamentary group no longer exists in the Bundestag, it will be even more difficult to stand against the governing coalition."
Social Democratic Party of Germany
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) general secretary Kevin Kühnert commented that "Sahra Wagenknecht has been a very established one-woman opposition for 30 years. But there is not a single political measure that is linked to her political activity where something has become better for people", and added that as Wagenknecht is rarely present in the Bundestag, he is not too worried about her new party.
Christian Democratic Union of Germany
The Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), which passed a resolution of incompatibility with both The Left and the AfD, discussed ways to deal with BSW. Wagenknecht offered to the CDU a coalition government if there was no majority without the AfD in the 2024 Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg state elections. The Brandenburg CDU parliamentary group leader Jan Redmann said that they should wait and see the next developments, a position that was also reflected by the CDU in Thuringia. CDU deputy party leader Andreas Jung told Die Welt: "Anti-Americanism, proximity to Putin, and socialism are completely incompatible with our stance." Former agriculture minister Julia Klöckner expressed her view that a resolution of incompatibility should also apply to BSW, while Lower Saxony CDU leader Sebastian Lechner stated that there was a need for clarification, as BSW cannot be subsumed under the CDU's incompatibility decision with The Left and AfD, and that Wagenknecht's new party would have to make its own decision. CDU chairman Friedrich Merz said that BSW could take votes from the AfD, while former president Joachim Gauck commented that BSW could also attract dissatisfied SPD voters.
Alternative for Germany
After the announcement of BSW's formation, the Brandenburg branch of the AfD fears a loss of votes in eastern Germany for the state elections that are to be held in 2024.
Media
In Germany, the Bild described Wagenknecht as a right-wing socialist, while Die Tageszeitung said that she promotes "socialism with a right-wing code". Party researchers generally assume that BSW could challenge the AfD for votes due to its views about the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and migration. Deutschlandfunk commented: "For the AfD, a Wagenknecht party would be direct competition that could cost it a few percentage points and reduce its own voter potential among those disappointed by politics. Both the future Die Linke and the AfD lack charismatic figures like Wagenknecht." T-Online commented that, alongside The Left and the AfD, BSW also posed a threat to the centre-right Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP), with around 26% of FDP voters willing to consider the party. It argued that although the FDP and BSW are opposites on most issues, with the FDP standing for economic liberalism, the bases of both parties are critical of German migration policy.
About BSW attracting AfD voters, Die Zeit stated: "Even if Wagenknecht wants to limit rather than promote immigration, she is not yet known to have openly racist and right-wing extremist attitudes and resentments. In this respect, it would be welcome if at least some of the AfD voters turned to a Wagenknecht party." Similarly, Der Spiegel argued: "If the party is founded, the new movement could lure away voters from the AfD. That would not be a bad thing on the surface: left-wing populism à la Wagenknecht is still better than a party on the far right. That is why they are afraid of the new group there." Handelsblatt commented that Wagenknecht could do what Merz has failed to do, namely "the halving of the AfD".
In Britain, The Spectator questioned whether Wagenknecht would succeed with her party, citing the "element of the personality cult". The Guardian stated that, along with the surge of far-right AfD in the polls, the rise of Wagenknecht's party signals rising discontent of the general population with the ruling Scholz cabinet, which Wagenknecht described as "the worst government in its history"; according to the polls, if an election were to take place in October 2023, BSW could win up to 20% of the national vote. The newspaper also commented that the new party puts The Left at risk of political irrelevance, as the party has long suffered from infighting and declining electoral returns. Political scientist Andrea Römmele described BSW as "an alternative to the Alternative for Germany", arguing that the party could claim support lost by The Left to the AfD in the new states. Political scientist Benjamin Höhne commented: "The niche BSW is opening up – stressing social justice, and at the same time ... [Wagenknecht] positioning herself in a more migration-sceptical way – has potential." In Italy, the Corriere della Sera described BSW as the "mirror image of the AfD".
See also
Aufstehen
List of political parties in Germany
Notes
References
External links
Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht
2023 establishments in Germany
Political parties established in 2023
Populist parties
Syncretic political movements