It is predicted that Sahra Wagenknecht’s new left-wing populist party will steal the attention of the increasing number of AfD supporters in Germany.

Wagenknecht announces formation of new German party

Former member of Germany’s Left Party (die Linke) Sahra Wagenknecht, has announced that she and nine other politicians will start a new political party which will be named after her.

Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) will be formed by early next year, the 54-year-old politician told a busy press conference on October 23. Wagenknecht joined the chorus of critics of Germany’s traffic-light coalition (Ampel), calling the government perhaps the worst that the federal republic had ever seen and claiming that unless BSW is formed "we probably [won’t] recognise our country in 10 years."

As three of Germany’s eastern states, Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, prepare for elections in 2024, Wagenknecht’s new party is likely to fragment the electorate in regions where the AfD has shot up in the polls since the Ampel took office in 2021. With a manifesto likely to promise a mix of socially conservative policies and socialist economic values, the populist BSW is expected to steal the attention of many voters currently looking in the direction of the AfD.

Speaking to Deutsche Welle, Sarah Wagner, a researcher at Mannheim University who has studied Wagenknecht’s political career, said that BSW provides a combination of stances never seen in one party in Germany before.

Who is Wagenknecht and what are her politics?

Wagenknecht was born in the GDR city of Jena in 1969 to a German mother and an Iranian father. As a young politician, she cut her teeth in East Germany’s ruling communist party, the Social Unity Party of Germany (SED), before becoming part of its modern iteration, The Left Party.

While the party that she has been involved with for much of her life has been slipping down the polls to less than 5 percent of the vote, Sahra Wagenknecht has regularly made headlines in recent years. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Wagenknecht opposed sanctions on the country, demanded Germany halt weapons deliveries to Ukraine and co-hosted a “peace rally” which was criticised for courting pro-Russia and right-wing groups.

Wagenknecht’s brand of populism is also critical of what the politician calls “lifestyle lefties”, those who, she argues, unquestioningly support migration while side-lining the interests of The Left’s original electorate, the working class in eastern German states.

Speaking to the press conference on Monday, Wagenknecht said that her new party would be an alternative to "the blind, haphazard eco-activism that makes people's lives even more expensive without doing anything to help the climate".

Accusations of stoking a Querfront or "cross-front", referring to collaboration between the far-right and far-left during the rise of the Nazi Party, is one that has often been applied to Wagenknecht’s stances by multiple media outlets and fellow Left members. In advance of Wagenknecht’s announcement, The Left has already said that it will expel representatives that join the new BSW.

Thumb image credit: Hadrian / Shutterstock.com