The new Sahara Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) is finalizing its campaign platform at the party conference in Bonn on Sunday. Founded with much media fanfare in January 2024, the party won significant victories in its first year.
Founded by a former leader of the Samajwadi Left Party and composed mostly of former members, the BSW achieved double-digit results in three state elections. In the eastern states of Brandenburg and Thuringia, the party is already a coalition partner in the provincial governments.
Now, the BSW wants to enter the Bundestag in the general election to be held on February 23, 2025, for which it will need to garner at least 5% of the vote. This is a tall order as it will be difficult to find enough candidates among only 1,000 party members, a result of the strict scrutiny imposed on those wishing to join the alliance.
Currently, 10 deputies represent the BSW in the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany’s parliament. All of them won their seats in 2021 as Left party candidates. In 2025, he is running for BSW. According to the latest survey in Germany, the party is getting around 5% of the vote.
Ukraine and refugees
Should Wagenknecht and his coalition make it into the Bundestag – parties in Germany must garner at least 5% of the vote to enter the federal parliament – it would likely be as an opposition party. The main obstacle to forming a coalition at the national level is the BSW’s position on supporting Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression. The BSW is calling for an end to German arms supplies to Ukraine, an unacceptable position for the potential ruling parties: the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU), the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD). And greens. As all other parties have done, the BSW has refused to form a coalition with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
There is much similarity on economic and social policy between the BSW and the Left parties. However, they fundamentally disagree on asylum policy. The Left Party does not demand further restrictions on immigration, while the BSW advocates more prevention to prevent displaced people from coming to Germany in large numbers.
Both BSW and the left object to heavy military support for Ukraine and Israel and are skeptical of NATO.
Sahra Wagenknecht’s confidence
Both the Left Party and the BSW warned that Germany could be dragged into war. “We need a German government that does everything possible to reduce this threat,” Wagenknecht says at campaign events.
The 55-year-old takes part in political TV talk shows in Germany and is confident of making it to the Bundestag. Wagenknecht has said, “In the best-case scenario, we even have the opportunity to help form a government.”
An economist who grew up in communist-ruled East Germany, Wagenknecht has described his party as breaking the mold of traditional political classifications. He believes that people do not even know what labels like “left” and “right” mean.
He also argued against banning the AfD. In 2023, he said that it was wrong to ridicule all AfD supporters as “Nazis”. “They are just conservative people who used to be in the CDU,” he said then.
This article was originally written in German.
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