“Left conservative”, Sahra Wagenknecht’s bet for the German elections

Will it dynamite the German political system? This is the ambition of the former communist Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of a new formation labeled “left-wing conservative” whose possible entry into parliament is giving the other parties a cold sweat.

Six weeks before the legislative elections on February 23, this 55-year-old seasoned elected official received a standing ovation on Sunday by launching the campaign of her party, created a year ago and which bears her name, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).

The one who has already upset the divisions with her line which draws on both its anti-capitalist, pacifist and pro-Russian roots, and positions on immigration close to the hard right, delivered a fiery speech.

She accused Chancellor Olaf Sholz and the parties in his ailing center-left coalition of leading Germany towards ” misery “.

“Our country is threatened by deindustrialization, combined with a dramatic loss of prosperity for the population, and a significant loss of security”she said.

“This is why we finally need a different signal and not more of the same, because our country can no longer stand it”and again launched Sahra Wagenknecht.

The BSW party got off to a flying start, taking third place in three regional elections held in eastern Germany at the end of the summer.

With scores between 12 and 16%, Sahra Wagenknecht reached voters in the former communist GDR, where the feeling of being downgraded is stronger than in the west.

Countercurrent

Born in the former GDR, to an Iranian father whom she barely knew and a German mother, she often went against the tide, joining the Communist Party a few months before the fall of the Wall in 1989.

“I would have preferred a thousand times to spend my life in the GDR rather than in the Germany in which I have to live now”she declared as the whole world celebrated the reunification of Germany.

At the end of 2023, she slammed the door of the far-left party Die Linke, of which she was one of the major figures, to create her own platform.

In an interview with AFP in September, Ms. Wagenknecht recognized that “Vladimir Putin has started a war contrary to international law”while judging that “the west has its share of responsibility”for lack of having “took Russia’s security concerns seriously”.

After its good scores in the regional elections, the BSW established itself as an arbiter in the parliaments of the Länder of Thuringia and Brandenburg, the only possible partner of the political parties which did not want to deal with the extreme right.

In Brandenburg, he allied himself with the social democratic party of Olaf Scholz. In Thuringia, with the SPD and the conservatives of the CDU. The agreement was not reached without difficulty, the BSW advocating, among other things, a halt to arms deliveries to kyiv.

Sahra Wagenknecht became so involved in the negotiations that tensions arose with her Thuringian leader.

Few members

After its good start, the formation symbolized by the color purple, however, seems to be struggling in terms of voting intentions.

Polls which predicted up to 10% of the vote in September now credit the BSW with a score of 5%, the threshold for entering the Bundestag.

The party has only 1,100 members and some 25,000 registered supporters. In many regions, it does not yet have structures.

The leader of the national CDU Friedrich Merz, favorite to succeed Olaf Scholz, rejects any hypothesis of an alliance with this figure of “the old GDR”.

While the BSW has attracted figures from the world of arts and sports, as well as millionaire entrepreneur Ralph Suikat, who said he wanted “pay more taxes”it remains strongly focused on its leader.

A familiar figure on television talk shows, Ms. Wagenknecht has long conveyed a discourse criticizing capitalism, the supposed arrogance of elites and a Western militarism deemed dangerous.

For the magazine Der Spiegel, this speaker posture “is no longer enough for her, she now wants to participate”.