Now the party executive is increasing the pressure on Sahra Wagenknecht. But the politician does not want to be pushed.
The executive board of the Left Party sharply distanced itself from the Bundestag member Sahra Wagenknecht in a resolution on Saturday and called on her to give up her mandate. “The future of the left is a future without Sahra Wagenknecht,” says the unanimously passed resolution. Wagenknecht has “not yet complied with” repeated requests to refrain from founding a competing party project.
Wagenknecht only confirmed in an interview on Friday that they were holding talks about founding a new party. Despite the Left leadership’s request to decide soon whether to remain in the Left Party, she had reaffirmed her plan to wait until the end of the year to make this decision.
“Simple blackmail attempts”
The board decision now says that Wagenknecht’s public announcements that he is considering founding a competing party “call into question the unity of the left and have been causing us massive damage for some time.” There are reports within the party that preparations are already being made to found such a competing party project.
When individuals systematically disregard decisions made democratically in the party and try “to impose a different course by threatening to found a competing party, these are simply attempts at blackmail,” according to the decision by the party executive. Wagenknecht was “not prepared to fight for a strong left together with all comrades in the party and to respect their democratic processes”.
“Commandment of political decency”
The resolution emphasizes that all Left MPs were elected to parliament on the party’s nomination. The members had “campaigned in the confidence that our MPs represent the program of the left and feel committed to it”.
It is therefore “a requirement of political decency and fairness towards the members of our party if those who participate in the project of a competing party are consistent and give up their mandates”. It is “unacceptable” that resources from mandates won for the left are used to set up a competing project.
