DPA
Sat, January 27, 2024
Sahra Wagenknecht takes part in the founding conference of the new Wagenknecht party, the "Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance - for Reason and Justice". The party was officially founded at the beginning of January with around 450 members.
Kay Nietfeld/dpa
Germany's newly founded Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) was holding its first party conference in Berlin on Saturday, where it was aiming to hone ambitious plans for the 2024 election year.
The BSW's programme and list of candidates for the European elections in June are to be finalized at the event held in the capital's Kino Kosmos conference centre, once the largest cinema in the former East Germany.
The draft manifesto is sharply critical of the European Union and calls for a departure from the EU's current climate policy, among other contentious points.
Wagenknecht split from the hard-left Die Linke (The Left) party last year and formed the BSW in early January with around 40 people and accepted the first 450 members.
The 54-year-old is the party's co-chair, together with former Die Linke parliamentary group leader Amira Mohamed Ali. Both are due to speak at the party conference.
Former Die Linke member of the European Parliament Fabio De Masi and long-time member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) Thomas Geisel, the former mayor of Dusseldorf, will be the BSW's lead candidates for the European elections.
The draft European election programme states: "The EU in its current constitution is detrimental to the European idea." Among other things, it criticizes the "regulatory frenzy of the EU technocracy."
If necessary, Germany should not adhere to EU rules, it continues: The BSW is "in favour of the non-implementation of EU regulations at national level if they run counter to economic reason, social justice, peace, democracy and freedom of expression."
More pensions, fewer weapons: New party pitches to save Germany from AfD
Germany's newly founded Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) was holding its first party conference in Berlin on Saturday, where it was aiming to hone ambitious plans for the 2024 election year.
The BSW's programme and list of candidates for the European elections in June are to be finalized at the event held in the capital's Kino Kosmos conference centre, once the largest cinema in the former East Germany.
The draft manifesto is sharply critical of the European Union and calls for a departure from the EU's current climate policy, among other contentious points.
Wagenknecht split from the hard-left Die Linke (The Left) party last year and formed the BSW in early January with around 40 people and accepted the first 450 members.
The 54-year-old is the party's co-chair, together with former Die Linke parliamentary group leader Amira Mohamed Ali. Both are due to speak at the party conference.
Former Die Linke member of the European Parliament Fabio De Masi and long-time member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) Thomas Geisel, the former mayor of Dusseldorf, will be the BSW's lead candidates for the European elections.
The draft European election programme states: "The EU in its current constitution is detrimental to the European idea." Among other things, it criticizes the "regulatory frenzy of the EU technocracy."
If necessary, Germany should not adhere to EU rules, it continues: The BSW is "in favour of the non-implementation of EU regulations at national level if they run counter to economic reason, social justice, peace, democracy and freedom of expression."
More pensions, fewer weapons: New party pitches to save Germany from AfD
Thomas Escritt
Updated Sat, January 27, 2024
By Thomas Escritt
BERLIN (Reuters) - Promising to rescue Germany from the far right, a new leftist party offered up a populist recipe of high pensions, low defence spending and an end to expensive climate policies in its first outing ahead of regional and European elections this year.
The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), named after its leader, a popular former leader of the Left party, held its first national congress on Saturday, with delegates turning their fire on the entire political spectrum from left to right.
With the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) gaining around 20% support in national opinion polls as it lures some voters away from the traditional parties that dominate government and opposition, many analysts speculate the BSW, on 8% in polls in one eastern state, could burst the AfD bubble.
The AfD remains behind the opposition conservatives on 31% but is still well ahead of all the three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's centre-left coalition, who together were polling 32%.
"We fear for democracy, we fear that the anger and disagreement in the country will be seized upon by the AfD," Wagenknecht told Reuters on Saturday. "We don't think people think radical right. They just want a voice that they don't have with other parties."
In some policy areas, little distinguishes it from the AfD: it, too, wants to end weapons deliveries to Ukraine, arguing that they prolong a conflict about whose origins in a Russian invasion nothing was said on stage at the congress.
In a former cinema on East Berlin's Karl-Marx-Allee, she and party colleagues also railed against Chancellor Olaf Scholz's centre-left coalition for being more preoccupied with identity politics than people's material concerns.
The party has a strong base in the former East Germany, where its message of high social spending and a baseline level of financial security despite hard economic times resonates among many.
Wagenknecht, born in eastern Germany to an Iranian father and German mother, cast government and opposition as the agents of the comfortable and wealthy, portraying Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock - the Green economy and foreign ministers - as ignorant, urban scolds pursuing harebrained, expensive schemes.
"Maybe Robert Habeck thinks everyone lives in modern houses or well-insulated lofts, so he thinks it a great idea to make everyone install a heat pump," said Wagenknecht.
The party's first electoral test will come later this year in three state elections in the East, where the AfD is on as much as 31% in opinion polls, making it almost impossible to circumvent in any coalition talks.
Wagenknecht has ruled out working with the AfD, yet while a strong BSW performance could solve one governance conundrum, her foreign policy positions may turn out to be no more palatable to other parties.
(This story has been refiled to correct grammar in paragraph 8)
(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by David Holmes)
Scholz’s Coalition Under Pressure as FDP Lags Far-Left Group
Chris Reiter
Sun, January 28, 2024
(Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition remains under pressure as a voter poll shows the co-ruling Free Democratic Party below a new far-left group and at risk of dropping out of parliament.
The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, known as BSW, received support from 7% of voters surveyed by INSA for Bild am Sonntag. The party, which held its first convention on Saturday, is planning to challenge in the upcoming European elections.
The pro-business FDP — run by Finance Minister Christian Lindner — fell to 4%, taking it below the hurdle needed to keep a place in parliament for the first time in INSA’s poll since 2015.
Germany’s political landscape is in turmoil amid widespread frustration with Scholz’s coalition. The sputtering economy is adding to the tension and providing an opening for new parties to win support.
In a sign of the concern, a group of more than 50 companies — including Deutsche Telekom AG, Puma SE and Thyssenkrupp AG — issued a joint appeal on mainstream parties to fight the far-right.
“Right-wing extremist forces threaten Germany’s democracy and its economic performance,” the Stiftung KlimaWirtschaft said in a statement.
The far-right AfD, which was the target of mass protests across Germany for the third weekend in a row, slipped one percentage point to 21%. It retained its No. 2 position behind the conservative CDU/CSU bloc, which gained one percentage point to 31%.
Scholz’s Social Democrats also gained one percentage point to 14%, while the co-ruling Greens were steady at 13%. Combined, the three ruling parties have support from just 31% of voters.
Just 21% would vote for Scholz directly if they could, while 28% would prefer CDU chief Friedrich Merz, according to the INSA poll.
(Updates with company appeal beginning in fifth paragraph)
Bloomberg Businessweek
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