Sahra Wagenknecht is a 54-year-old politician who until recently was a member of the struggling left-wing party Die Linke. She is also a household name in Germany. A figure of undeniable charisma, she’s a regular on TV talk shows, where her ability to present sometimes radical opinions as if they were common sense makes for lively discussion and entertaining viewing. Now, with the launch of her own party – named after her – Germans may soon get the chance to vote for her. Does she have a chance – and what does the fanfare surrounding the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) tell us about the direction of German politics?
At least in part, people are paying attention to Wagenknecht because she’s long had a penchant for radical positions. When she first came of political age, even the Left Party was worried that she was a Stalin apologist. But Wagenknecht’s politics have changed with age. Her communism has been tempered by some expressions of admiration for the free market. She’s also become increasingly critical of immigration, Germany’s Covid-19 policy, sanctions against Russia, climate protesters and “lifestyle leftists”, as Wagenknecht refers to many advocates of racial and gender equality. Unsurprisingly, Die Linke seems hardly sorry to see her go: “It’s like your grandmother who has cancer,” Dietmar Bartsch, co-chair of the party’s parliamentary committee, told Der Tagesspiegel. “You know she’s going to die, but you’re still sad when the time comes.”
There aren’t many new ideas in Wagenknecht’s platform, although the way they’re put together may be novel. Her economic plans are peppered with conspiratorial references to foreign monopolies, and she calls for a substantial increase in the minimum wage, but at their core her proposals are broadly similar to other centre-left policies. Her rhetoric on immigration, however, is straight out of the far-right AfD playbook. “There shouldn’t be any neighbourhoods,” she said in an interview in 2021, “where locals are in the minority.”
Wagenknecht’s politics clearly resonate with the German public. A recent poll of German voters found that 14% would vote for a Wagenknecht party, just one point behind the ruling Social Democrats (SPD) and two points ahead of the Greens. It is a testament to the breadth of Wagenknecht’s coalition that, if the initial polls are to be believed, she would take votes not only from her own former political home, but also from the centre-right CDU, the left-wing Greens and the pro-business FDP. Most importantly, Wagenknecht is trying to appeal to some of the AfD’s voters. Much of the party’s success in recent elections, she argues, comes from Germans who “don’t vote for the AfD because they’re right-wing. They vote for the AfD because they’re angry. Wagenknecht’s attempts to siphon off the AfD’s protest voters currently appear to be the only viable plan to mitigate the far-right party’s electoral success.
The AfD’s reaction has been surprisingly muted. There must be some disappointment: Björn Höcke, the party’s leader in the eastern state of Thuringia, has been begging it to join for months. But even if initial estimates are correct, the AfD would still be left with an impressive 17% of the vote, second only to the CDU. Moreover, Wagenknecht’s populist, anti-immigrant rhetoric goes a long way towards legitimising the AfD’s own preferred electoral strategy. More worryingly, if her party is as successful as early polls suggest, there will be fewer ways to form majority governments without the AfD or Wagenknecht, at either state or federal level. “A truly alternative left,” Höcke said in a recent statement, “could have an important function in the transformation of the German party system.” Wagenknecht may take votes away from the AfD, but she may also enable it to take political power if coalition partners are forced to choose between two populist parties.
Germany’s mainstream parties are weak. The electorate is divided, and the governing coalitions that have so far worked to keep the AfD out have become increasingly divisive and ineffective as a result. Infighting and incompetence have prevented the government from fulfilling many of its election promises. It is hardly the first to struggle: For decades, Germany’s politicians have promised to streamline its often cumbersome bureaucracy, improve the country’s technological infrastructure and foster a more robust technology sector. But political infighting and a lack of imagination have prevented any meaningful change. Now, as a recession looms, resentment at the ineptitude of the political class is likely to grow.
Wagenknecht’s platform is still evolving, but it’s unlikely to be all that different from that of the other parties. The core government promises of better social services, a stronger economy and less red tape are shared across the political spectrum. The AfD and the Greens both campaign on increasing funding for education. So will Wagenknecht. It won’t be surprising to hear her lash out at immigrants and climate activists.
But she’s hardly the only one who’s figured out that you don’t necessarily need sound policy solutions or real leadership to play on people’s resentments. Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, recently announced his plans for ‘deportations on a grand scale’, while the leader of the CDU, Friedrich Merz, has gone on a veritable tirade, accusing Berlin neighbourhoods of not being sufficiently German and demanding that new immigrants to Germany declare their allegiance to Israel. With the world increasingly unsettled by violence in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as the ongoing series of climate crises, German politics is taking a sharp turn in a nationalist-populist direction. And Sahra Wagenknecht may soon accelerate that journey.
