Popular with the left and AfD: Sahra Wagenknecht dreams of her own party

Between phenomenon and paradox: Sahra Wagenknecht has fallen out of favor with many party members after a series of controversial statements about the Ukraine war.

Popular with the left and AfD: Sahra Wagenknecht dreams of her own party

Between phenomenon and paradox: Sahra Wagenknecht has fallen out of favor with many party members after a series of controversial statements about the Ukraine war. Instead, she is cheered by AfD supporters. The ingredients for a new party?

Left MP Sahra Wagenknecht is considering founding her own party. "I would like a party to emerge in Germany that can change government policy," she said on Bild TV. She added that it was "not that easy to set up a party". The party executive was again considering a split in the parliamentary group.

She wanted to be involved in changing politics, said the former parliamentary group leader of the left in the Bundestag. "Our country is changing very, very much at the moment. If you don't stop the traffic light, I'm very worried about the conditions in which we will wake up in a year or two."

The traffic light coalition is pursuing a "really catastrophic policy," Wagenknecht criticized. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are in danger "because the traffic light is pursuing a completely nonsensical policy, isolating us from cheap raw materials and cheap energy without having any alternatives." Industry is the backbone of prosperity, said Wagenknecht. "If that breaks, then everything breaks away here. That's why there has to be more pressure on this government so that it can't continue like this."

In the Bundestag, Wagenknecht described the Greens as "the most dangerous party" and thus caused a stir in their own ranks. The parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch objected: "The most dangerous party represented in the Bundestag is and remains the AfD."

Just a few weeks ago, Wagenknecht reaped protests from many of her comrades with a speech in the Bundestag on Ukraine policy. In it, the former parliamentary group leader accused the federal government of "starting an economic war against Russia." Her critics complained that she was misrepresenting the cause - the Russian attack on Ukraine - and the consequence - the sanctions.

Wagenknecht said in one of her regular video messages: "For me, the Greens are the most hypocritical, aloof, mendacious, incompetent and, measured by the damage they cause, the most dangerous party we currently have in the Bundestag."

Wagenknecht said that many citizens no longer knew what to vote for because they no longer felt represented by any party.

According to a survey by the opinion research institute INSA in September, 30 percent of eligible voters can imagine voting for a Wagenknecht party. 66 percent of current Left Party voters and also 63 percent of AfD voters would find it good if such a party would compete in the next federal election.

Wagenknecht recently caused controversy with her controversial speech in the Bundestag, in which she accused the federal government of having launched an "unprecedented economic war" against Russia. This had caused criticism from the party leadership and led to resignations.

The Baden-Württemberg board member Luigi Pantisano now suggested in the "Spiegel" not Wagenknecht, but their opponents should leave the group. "The party leadership must not look on while politicians in office use the structures to build a competing party," he said. The means by which this is done must be examined. For example, those MPs who act in line with the party's decision-making process could leave the parliamentary group. "Then we as the party executive could recognize this group as the parliamentary representation of the left."

In this case, however, neither the Wagenknecht camp nor that of the party leadership would have enough MPs to gain the status of a parliamentary group. That would mean cuts in the work in the Bundestag.