Criticism of “blackmail attempts”
Left increases pressure: Wagenknecht should give mandate
06/10/2023, 5:45 p.m
Sahra Wagenknecht has long angered the Left Party, for which she sits in the Bundestag. Her thoughts about founding a new party are now causing emotions to run high. The party executive makes it clear: “The future of the left is a future without Sahra Wagenknecht.”
In a resolution, the board of the Left Party distanced itself sharply from the member of the Bundestag Sahra Wagenknecht and called on her to give up her mandate. “The future of the left is a future without Sahra Wagenknecht,” says the unanimously passed resolution. Wagenknecht has “not yet complied with” repeated requests to refrain from founding a competing party project.
Wagenknecht only confirmed in an interview on Friday that they were holding talks about founding a new party. Despite the Left leadership’s request to decide soon whether to remain in the Left Party, she had reaffirmed her plan to wait until the end of the year to make this decision.
The board decision now says that Wagenknecht’s public announcements that he is considering founding a competing party “call into question the unity of the left and have been causing us massive damage for some time.” There are reports within the party that preparations are already being made to found such a competing party project.
“Principle of political decency”
When individuals systematically disregard decisions made democratically in the party and try “by threatening to found a competing party to impose a different course, these are simply attempts at blackmail,” according to the decision by the party executive. Wagenknecht was “not prepared to fight for a strong left together with all comrades in the party and to respect their democratic processes”.
The resolution emphasizes that all Left MPs were elected to parliament on the party’s nomination. The members had “campaigned in the confidence that our MPs represent the program of the left and feel committed to it”.
It is therefore “a requirement of political decency and fairness towards the members of our party if those who participate in the project of a competing party are consistent and give up their mandates”. It is “unacceptable” for resources from mandates won for the left to be used to set up a competing project.