Sarah Wagenknecht and her comrades submitted an official request to the German parliament to recognize them as a parliamentary group, which would give them more rights and some financial support.
The move was expected after Wagenknecht and nine other MPs left the German Left (Die Linke) in October and announced the establishment of their own party before the European and regional elections next year.
For now, there is only the citizens' association "Sara Wagenknecht Alliance", which has already collected over one million euros in donations. The founding of the party was announced for January.
A left-winger who is loved by right-wingers
Thus, Wagenknecht (54), the most popular face of the Left for years, entered the political struggle with a concept that many call "conservative socialism." It is believed that, paradoxically, this leftist will be the biggest threat to the radical right from the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
"The AfD has managed to now be the address for disaffected voters," Wagenknecht recently told the German public service. But, as she added, people need a more serious address that, apart from criticism of the authorities, also has solutions.
Although the party does not yet exist, polls for Sara Wagenknecht predict double-digit results - more than twice as good as her recent Left party, which has been on the road to decline for years.
It had to do with the conflict between the hard leftist Wagenknecht and the party leadership. To them, she was too radical and politically incorrect, especially regarding refugees.
For her, on the other hand, that leadership is too busy with climate policy and woke topics, so it forgets about the workers and classic voters of the Left.
Always against the mainstream
Wagenknecht, the daughter of an Iranian immigrant and a German, has a popular YouTube channel and writes bestsellers about the betrayal of the working class. She criticized the strict lockdown measures during the pandemic.
Last year, the "peace campaign" and the petition that she launched to end the war in Ukraine brought her new accusations and new popularity. Although he is against Russia's policy of conquest, Wagenknecht demands that the West stop arming Kiev, as well as that the war be ended by sanctions, because of which the Germans also suffer price increases.
Back in 2014, Wagenknecht pointed out the "hypocrisy" of those in the West who reject the annexation of Crimea, but participated in the bombing of the FR Yugoslavia in 1999 and recognized the independence of Kosovo.
Lately, she has criticized her party mates for becoming "lifestyle leftists" who care only about marginalized groups - refugees, sexual minorities - instead of the ordinary working man.
Stealing voters from the right
Paradoxically, Wagenknecht on the left often takes similar positions to the right-wing AfD, which has experienced a renaissance in opinion polls in recent months.
It therefore sounded like a good joke when radical rightist Björn Hecke, head of the AfD in Thuringia, openly invited Wagenknecht to join his party. That doesn't occur to her.
Sarah Wagner, a researcher at the University of Mannheim who dealt with the "Wagenknecht phenomenon". The popularity of that leftist, he says, attracts even the voters of the radical right.
"We see that people very strongly associate the issue of immigration with the words Wagenknecht," Wagner previously told Deutsche Welle. "She also gets support from people who are conservative in principle - for example, who are critical of climate protection or against the rights of the LGBTQI community."
Wagner says that the danger for the AfD lies primarily in the fact that their voters are not overly attached to the party - many choose it only out of protest against the ruling policy. "There are voters who are dissatisfied with democracy, conservatives." Many people are not very comfortable with voting for the AfD, but they don't see another party to choose from."
The analyst says that what Wagenknecht offers has not yet been attempted in the history of FR Germany. Namely – conservative social values united with socialist economic principles. "A significant number of people could identify with such a program," says Wagner.
Honeymoon until the election
The European elections next spring could be a good test for the new party, and then it would shoot big in the provincial elections next year. In all three eastern states, Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, she would have an excellent chance.
But, as the newspaper Fraje Presse from Chemnitz writes, for now it is still love at first sight for voters and Sarah Wagenknecht. Soon, citizens will want to hear more specific things about the program.
"And then it could turn out," the newspaper writes, "that the new party will be too right-wing for the leftists, and too left-wing for the right-wingers." "
NR/dpa, dlf, fp, dw
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