As of: January 29, 2024, 2:03 p.m
By: Andreas Schmid
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She is the face of BSW: Sahra Wagenknecht.
© IMAGO/image enclosure
Is the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance right or left?
Wagenknecht herself describes her new party as left-wing conservative - but right-wing circles should also keep an eye on the former icon of the left.
Berlin – The Sahra Wagenknecht alliance is currently following a strict bouncer course.
This means: Not everyone who wants in gets in.
The newly founded party is extremely cautious when it comes to membership applications and even rejects long-time confidants.
This means that only 450 members are invited to the first party conference in Berlin.
There would be significantly more interested parties.
Also from the right, as they say.
Wagenknecht infiltration?
“The new party focuses on right-wing radical cross-front milieu”
One person who publicly warns is Hans-Christian Lange.
He was once an advisor to the Chancellor under Helmut Kohl.
He has been at Wagenknecht's political side for years.
For a long time, Bavaria was head of the left-wing rallying movement Rise, a quasi forerunner of the BSW.
Together with the social worker Beate Jenkner and the former IG Metall boss in Munich, Harald Flassbeck, he set up the
Sahra Wagenknecht
Munich
support team .
In the Bavarian capital he observes “a right-wing radical cross-front milieu that has the new party in focus” and warns: “There are right-wing circles that want to infiltrate the party.” There are such attempts from the corona-critical conspiracy milieu.
Lange and his team monitor several social media channels as well as the largest right-wing demonstrations in West Germany.
Lange at an event of the “Get Up” movement in 2022. © IMAGO/Sachelle Babbar
Lange and his team were "shocked by the AfD's so-called 'remigration offensive'," as he says.
“The right-wing radical network with such ideas extends to Munich and we will continue to fight it.” His Munich support team included many employees and cultural workers with a migrant background.
These people are unsettled and outraged by AfD statements.
Lange wants to give them a voice.
His Sahra-Wagenknecht team sees itself as a “firewall against the right”.
It wants to specifically address people in the low-wage sector, for whom Wagenknecht has repeatedly taken sides, for example in her book “The Self-Righteous”.
Wagenknecht: Crazy people or extremists have to stay outside
Lange is not currently a BSW member.
To date, the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance has welcomed around 450 members.
Their political views and previous history were systematically checked beforehand, for example based on public statements on social media.
In October, Wagenknecht emphasized in
Focus
that she and her colleagues would “definitely do everything to prevent crackpots or extremists from infiltrating our base.”
It is decided very carefully who can become a full member.
“We will grow rather slowly.”
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Lange finds this strategy “absolutely right due to the risks of infiltration.”
The political scientist Prof. Dr. made a similar statement.
Constantin Wurthmann in an interview with the
Frankfurter Rundschau
: “I don’t think that’s a bad idea at all.
“Lessons have obviously been learned from previous party formations where attempts at infiltration were made.”
The question remains: Is a party even allowed to decide so rigorously who is allowed to participate and who is not?
“A clear yes,” says Sebastian Roßner, a lawyer specializing in party law, in an interview with our editorial team.
“A party can choose who can join.
The party law states that you don’t even have to give reasons for a rejection.” But there is certainly criticism of this in legal circles.
“Some argue that, according to the Basic Law, parties are organs of citizens.
It is sometimes derived from this that the party must at least justify why people are being denied membership.
But there is certainly no obligation to take admission,” says Roßner.
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