There are still similarities in content between the future Wagenknecht group and the old Left Party, which now has to reposition itself. But above all a violent crack. If both sides still share something, it is relief at the end.
It is a first for the German Bundestag: a parliamentary group dissolves in the middle of the legislative period. The 38 Left MPs to date will form two groups in the future, because there is not enough for a faction in either of them, neither in the Wagenknecht group nor in the rest of the Left. For this you need five percent of the members of the Bundestag – currently there are 37.
The left-wing faction decided today on the path to self-dissolution; the faction is to be liquidated by December 6th. The separation should, as far as possible, take place in a civilized manner. Because of the 108 employees, as MPs from both sides repeatedly emphasize. Some of them will still have to look for a new job: groups receive less financial resources than parliamentary groups and can therefore afford fewer employees.
Even if there is still a bit of bewilderment, especially on the side of the abandoned, relief seems to prevail. In the future, groups will not only have fewer employees and also fewer parliamentary rights. But at least a year-long, agonizing argument has come to an end.
“In the end inevitable”
Gregor Gysi had already diagnosed at the party conference in Göttingen in 2012 that there was “hatred” in the faction. There is animosity and hostility in all factions, says Jan Korte, the long-standing Left faction leader, in an interview with ntv.de today. “The difference with us is the personal relentlessness and this strange longing for doom.” For him it is “a sad day.” But at least a latent ongoing conflict has now been clarified. “In the end, the split between the party and the parliamentary group was unavoidable,” says Klaus Ernst, chairman of the Committee for Climate Protection and Energy. He is likely to lose this position because groups have no right to such positions.
Korte remains on the left, Ernst will belong to the Wagenknecht group. He signed the letter in which Wagenknecht and some of her supporters explained at the end of October why they wanted to leave the Left Party and found a new party. The reason for the separation is primarily based on content: “We have repeatedly tried to halt the decline of the party by changing the political course,” it says in the letter. The left is accused of “lacking concentration on social justice and peace”.
These are exactly the topics on which there is actually the strongest agreement between the two groups. Korte also wants his party to be there for those “who get a shiver down their spine when a Social Democratic defense minister calls for military capability.” He also wants to “make politics for those who are exploited.”
What exactly is “left”?
But there are two more points: The “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance,” as the association is called, wants to build a party that is a “voice for social justice, peace, reason and freedom.” Wagenknecht has been railing against what she calls a “lifestyle left” for years. The commitment to minorities, gender stars and climate protection not only got on her nerves, she didn’t and doesn’t see it as really “left-wing”. “There are reasons why the Left is hardly ever voted for by workers, pensioners, socially disadvantaged people or peace activists,” says Bundestag member Alexander Ulrich, who left the Left Party along with Wagenknecht. “Open borders for everyone, identity politics or more radical climate policy will no longer score points, as almost all surveys confirm.”
Klaus Ernst is even clearer: “A policy of open borders is illusory and creates more problems than it solves,” he says. When it comes to climate policy, he sounds more like the FDP than the Greens: “Without a doubt, climate change is a big problem, but how do we deal with it? We think: through innovation and by not narrowing the corridor of possible solutions from the outset . And above all not by making people’s lives more and more expensive. Unfortunately, the left sees it differently.”
And then there was the peace demonstration in February
Ernst’s previous parliamentary group colleague Korte also confirms this dissent from the other direction: “We need anchoring in the unions, anchoring in the companies as well as in the climate movement or in refugee work,” he says. The way Wagenknecht speaks about migrants has “nothing to do with the left.”
From the perspective of many leftists who remain in the Left Party, it is Wagenknecht who is no longer “left”. The Bundestag member Clara Bünger emphasizes: “The Left remains the only voice that does not move to the right.”
The accusation of having an unclear relationship with the right-wing extremist already existed when Wagenknecht, together with the journalist Alice Schwarzer, organized a rally in February to protest against arms deliveries to Ukraine, because right-wing radicals also took part. The Left unanimously rejects arms deliveries to Ukraine. What angered some in the party, however, was the impression that Wagenknecht was more critical of Ukraine than of Russia.
“The tablecloth was cut”
It is possible that discussions about Russia at left-wing party conferences will be somewhat less controversial in the future, and that the demand to replace NATO “with a collective security system with the participation of Russia” will be removed from the party program at some point. The then Berlin Social Senator Katja Kipping launched a corresponding initiative before she left politics. The former Left leader’s reasoning: “At the latest after Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which violates international law, with all the atrocities that are associated with it, including the abduction of thousands of children, one cannot pretend that this development did not happen .” A future Wagenknecht party is likely to see this completely differently.
There are also big differences on the question of guilt. It is “these ten who destroyed the faction,” emphasizes Jan Korte, referring to the Wagenknecht Group. Klaus Ernst also sees this very differently: “We all wished that it wouldn’t have come to this and we fought for this internally for a long time. But the party executive and other parts of the officials have made it clear to us again and again that they want us and ours “We no longer want to have positions in this party – so we left.” Alexander Ulrich says that at the latest with the Federal Executive Board’s decision in the summer that Sahra Wagenknecht should give back her Bundestag mandate, “the tablecloth was cut.”
New beginnings as an “opportunity”, as a “historical opportunity”
The Left and the Wagenknecht Group at least agree that the separation also has positive aspects. “We have to see the dissolution of the parliamentary group as an opportunity to go into the future stronger and connected,” says Clara Bünger. “It is logical to go separate ways when it comes to political positions that can no longer be reconciled and that deviate from my understanding of left-wing politics.”
Sevim Dagdelen, Sahra Wagenknecht’s long-time confidante, even says that the founding of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance is “a historic opportunity to create a party that focuses on the actual concerns of the citizens.” In the Bundestag, the new group wants to represent “the interests of the majority of the population for economic reason, consistent peace policy and social justice” instead of “losing themselves in secondary issues like the left,” said Dagdelen.
You can already hear here that the bitter dispute that has been going on within the Left Party may not be completely over after all. In the future it could only be fought between two parties.