Left-wing politician and Die Linke party dissident Sahra Wagenknecht presented her project for a new political party in Berlin this morning. Its organizational prelude is the “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance” (BSW), an association which will prepare the formal creation of a new party early next year, with a different name than BSW. Wagenknecht and nine other members of Die Linke in the Bundestag will quit the group when their new party has been created. Losing ten members will reduce Die Linke to 28 members, losing it, therefore, official group status in the Bundestag, which implies a number of restrictions, including financial ones—and which will severely reduce the group’s potentials for political initiatives.
Wagenknecht criticized the policies of the German government in her announcement. Referring to the “red-yellow-green” three party “traffic light coalition” government, she said it was “probably the worst government” in the history of the Federal Republic, moreover “at a time of crisis and war.” She argued: “We need a return of reason to politics. We decided to found a new party because we are convinced that things cannot continue the way they are currently going.”
Elaborating briefly on the plans to found a party, Wagenknecht declared: “Things must not continue as they are at present. Because otherwise we probably won’t recognize our country in ten years.” She said that “unregulated immigration” was exacerbating “the problems at schools, especially in poorer residential areas.” In addition, she said Germany must “get away from blind, haphazard eco-activism that makes people’s lives even more expensive, but actually doesn’t help the climate at all.” (She is still very pro-environmentalist, an aspect which is one of the weak spots in Wagenknecht’s views.)
Wagenknecht accused the government of pursuing a policy against Germany’s citizens. The economy is poor, the railroad tracks are dilapidated, pensions are too low, she said. “This policy must not be continued,” she insisted. Wagenknecht criticized not only the social and economic policies of Berlin’s traffic light, but also its “blind, haphazard eco-activism.” Her new party will stand up for “reason and justice.”
Bundestag member Amira Mohamed Ali, who will be chairwoman of the BSW, said the alliance and the planned new party will stand up for all those who are “not on the sunny side of life,” but who work hard. Mohamed Ali explained that many people do not feel represented by the existing parties. “We want to close the existing gap in the German party system and establish a party that stands for economic reason, social justice, peace and freedom.”
