German MP announces formation of new anti-war party
Germany will have a new left-wing political grouping in 2024 after prominent Left Party MP Sahra Wagenknecht announced the formation of her own party. Its platform will include the normalization of relations with Russia and a peace-oriented foreign policy.
Wagenknecht broke the news during a press conference in Berlin on Monday, saying she and fellow Left Party defectors had “decided to establish a new party.” Explaining the need for a new political force, she argued that things “can’t continue like this” or Germans “will probably not recognize our country in ten years.”
The politician plans for the new party to run candidates in regional elections in the eastern regions of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, as well as in the European Parliament election next year.
A fresh poll commissioned by Bild am Sonntag indicated that some 27% of Germans would not rule out voting for Wagenknecht’s new political force.
Until the party’s official formation at the start of 2024, Wagenknecht and nine other Bundestag colleagues who resigned from the Left Party said they wished to keep their current seats. Party leadership has, however, already indicated that the defectors could lose their mandates much earlier. In September, Wagenknecht hinted at her plans to branch out, claiming that many Germans felt that none of the existing political forces represented their views.
Not long after that, the “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – for reason and justice” was registered with the aim of laying the groundwork for the establishment of a new party. The politician clarified that the Left Party had, in her opinion, become increasingly irrelevant. She also blasted Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government on Monday as the “worst government in the history of the federal republic.”
Wagenknecht said she would seek to preserve Germany’s “economic strengths” as well as work toward more social justice. With respect to foreign policy, Berlin should switch to diplomacy rather than weapons deliveries when dealing with conflicts, the politician insisted.
She has been a vocal critic of Scholz’s policies toward Moscow over the Ukraine conflict, arguing that the current approach risks leading to a global, and potentially nuclear conflict. Berlin, according to Wagenknecht, should assume the role of a peacemaker.
Commenting previously on the EU’s anti-Russia sanctions, the politician has repeatedly claimed that the punitive measures are doing more harm to the German economy than to the Russian one, and thus should be lifted.
Wagenknecht is also a prominent critic of the European Union’s “elite project” and NATO, and argues for more independence for national states.
