Germany's Left calls on controversial lawmaker to quit party
June 10, 2023
The Left — the most left-wing party in the German Bundestag — called on its former leader Sahra Wagenknecht to give up her parliamentary seat on Saturday following speculations about her plan to start a new political party.
The party leadership issued a resolution against the controversial lawmaker, saying "the future of The Left is a future without Sahra Wagenknecht."
Following the party's poor results in the 2021 general election which saw them lose 30 seats and only just manage to scrape by the minimum requirements necessary to get any seats in the Bundestag, Wagenknecht has increasingly expressed frustration and a desire to found a new party.
What did The Left say?
The Left leadership said that Wagenknecht — who was a co-leader of the party from 2015 to 2019 — was flouting democratically agreed decisions and was trying "to push through a different agenda with the threat of forming a competing party."
She is "not ready to fight for a strong Left together with all party comrades and to respect the democratic process."
"To date, she has not complied with the request to clearly distance her from any competing party project," the resolution said.
The party expressed concerns that Wagenknecht is using resources from her role as a member of the Bundestag for The Left to get a new party going.
It is a question of "political decency and fairness regarding the members of the party, if those who take part in a competing party project, act consistently and give up their seat," the party said in the resolution.
Who is Sahra Wagenknecht?
The 53-year-old was born in East Germany and was a member of the Soviet successor party — the Party of Democratic Socialism — which merged to form The Left in 2007.
She has been a major figure in the party for many years, but has courted controversy on numerous occasions, at times also courting support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Wagenknecht has taken positions against allowing migration, even criticizing Germany's previous policies of allowing in refugees. She has expressed skepticism toward the coronavirus vaccines. And she even wrote a book attacking members of her own party who were pushing for more action on climate protection and gender-neutral language.
Most recently, Wagenknecht has made headlines due to her stance on Russia, NATO, and the war in Ukraine.
A long-time supporter of Moscow, the lawmaker launched a petition — and a subsequent protest movement — calling for negotiations to end the war and an end to deliveries of weapons in Ukraine.
Wagenknecht's position on the conflict in Ukraine is not that far removed from her party's stance — namely that talks between Russia and Ukraine are more likely to end the war than Western weapons deliveries — but nevertheless, the Left distanced itself from her so-called peace rally in Berlin in February.
ab/msh (dpa, AFP)
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