Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance

History

Background

Wagenknecht, who has been described as a prominent left-wing politician, was a member of The Left and its predecessors, such as the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS); her political positions are generally identified as left-wing populist. Although she was co-leader of The Left from 2015 to 2019, conflict with other party members on topics, such as the German refugee policy, COVID-19 vaccination, and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, had led to speculation since 2021 that she would leave The Left and found a new political party.

Speculation increased in the run-up to the 2023 Hessian state election and the 2023 Bavarian state election on 8 October, in which The Left failed to reach the 5% electoral threshold while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged in both. The success of the AfD led Wagenknecht to claim that a left-wing populist party could compete with the AfD while also respecting the German constitution.

In 2022, Sahra Wagenknecht blamed Die Linke's successive electoral failures (the party's national share of the vote having fallen from 12% in 2009 to 5% in 2021) on its emphasis on policies to combat sexist, racist or homophobic discrimination, to the detriment of economic issues. She argues for the primacy of the latter, in contrast to the intersectional approach of the party's leadership, which uses the term "classism" to refer to the social question as a form of discrimination, in the same way as sexism or racism. In her view, the working classes no longer recognise themselves in the discourse of the left, and are turning to the far-right AfD party as a receptacle for the protest vote.

Association registration

The association BSW – Für Vernunft und Gerechtigkeit e.V., based in Karlsruhe, was entered in the association register at the district court in Mannheim on 26 September 2023. In mid-October, over fifty members of The Left submitted an application for Wagenknecht's exclusion from the party in order to prevent her from building a new party with the resources of The Left.

Members of the party and political commentators blamed the ongoing speculation about the founding of a new party and the resulting breakup of the Left for its poor results in the state elections. Martin Schirdewan, federal chairman of The Left and co-chair of The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL, declared that the party would expel members who committed to the founding of a rival party by BSW. The Federal Executive Board of The Left passed a resolution of incompatibility with BSW.

Shortly after the press conference was announced, a fake website was registered under www.bswpartei.de that presented itself as the official website of the party, using copyrighted imagery and Wagenknecht's office address in its imprint. Wagenknecht filed a criminal report against the website, which is now offline. It is still unclear who created it.

Members of BSW in the German Bundestag want to continue working as a parliamentary group and have submitted a corresponding application to the president of the Bundestag. When the Wagenknecht Group was constituted in the Bundestag on 11 December 2023, Wagenknecht was elected its chair, Klaus Ernst its deputy chair, and Jessica Tatti its parliamentary managing director. The association also started being represented in the Berlin House of Representatives by Alexander King, the Hamburg Parliament by Metin Kaya and, the Parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate by Andreas Hartenfels, a former member of Alliance 90/The Greens.

Party foundation

The party was officially founded on 8 January 2024, followed by a two hour long press conference. This formation process saw the creation of a new website and the publishing of the first party manifesto for BSW. The party also named its lead candidates for the 2024 European Parliament election in Germany and announced that it had already created a full list of candidates due to be approved at the first party conference.

The University of Potsdam developed a political test, BSW-O-Mat (name being a reference to the Wahl-O-Mat by the bpb), based on the first party manifesto. The test was released on the same day as the manifesto.

It was announced on 1 December 2023 that the first party conference is planned to be held on 27 January 2024. Ralph Suikat also commented at the time, that the association had thus far received an amount of donations in the seven figures, this was later clarified to be 1.4 million Euros collected during the whole of 2023. The majority (90%) of which were small donations, only €12,000 in total were donated from non-EU foreign countries, thereof €75 in total from Russia.

On 27 January 2024, the party held its first party conference and invited 450 of its founding members. The party elected its executive committee and formulated a draft program for the 2024 European Parliament election in Germany, which included criticisms of the European Union in its current form and demands for more decision-making power to the member states and significant restriction of migration to Germany. The party won six seats, and saw particular strength in eastern Germany.

Mandates and offices

The ten BSW members of parliament represented in the German Bundestag were elected to parliament via the respective state lists of the Left Party. They were recognised as a parliamentary group on 2 February 2024. It bears the name Gruppe BSW im Bundestag and had already constituted itself internally on 11 December 2023. Sahra Wagenknecht was elected chairwoman, Klaus Ernst as deputy chairman and Jessica Tatti as parliamentary manager. The other MPs in the group are Amira Mohamed Ali, Ali Al-Dailami, Sevim Dağdelen, Andrej Hunko, Christian Leye, Żaklin Nastić and Alexander Ulrich.

With Alexander King (Berlin House of Representatives), Metin Kaya (Hamburg Parliament) and Andreas Hartenfels (Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament) the party is also represented in three state parliaments through defections. With the switch of Katja Wolf to the BSW in March 2024, the party provided the mayor of the city of Eisenach in Thuringia until the end of June 2024, because she did not run again in the local elections in Thuringia in May 2024 and instead ran as the top candidate for the BSW in the Thuringian state elections in September 2024.

In the 2024 European Parliament election in Germany, six candidates of the BSW secured their seats and became members of the European Parliament: Fabio De Masi, Thomas Geisel, Michael von der Schulenburg, Ruth Firmenich, Jan-Peter Warnke and Friedrich Pürner. The party unsuccessfully sought to form a parliamentary group in the European Parliament together with the Italian Five Star Movement. In February 2025, Pürner resigned from the party, reducing the BSW's number of seats to five.

In September 2024, Slovak Smer began negotiations with two other parties in the Non-Inscrits, the BSW and the Czech Stačilo!, on establishing cooperation between left-wing conservative parties in the EU.

In September 2024, the BSW achieved a double-digit share of the vote and third place in the state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg. In February 2025 the party fell just below the 5% threshold to win seats in the German Bundestag, and thus lost all their representation. A few weeks later they distantly failed to reach 5% in the Hamburg state election, and lost their seat.

Since December 2024, the BSW has been involved in state governments in Brandenburg (Woidke IV Cabinet) and Thuringia (Voigt Cabinet) for the first time.

2024 state elections in eastern Germany

In September 2024, BSW faced its first large electoral test in Landtag elections in the states of Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia. In Saxony and Thuringia, the BSW came in third place. In Brandenburg, the BSW competed with largely unknown candidates. Although 13 BSW candidates were elected to the state parliament on September 22, their names were missing from the state party's homepage before and after the election.

On 11 December 2024, Dietmar Woidke formed the Woidke IV Cabinet in Brandenburg and the first nationwide red–purple coalition with the BSW was formed. In Thuringia, a Blackberry coalition was formed.

2025 federal election

The 2025 federal election was initially scheduled for September, but was moved up to 23 February following the collapse of the governing traffic light coalition. The Bundestag was formally dissolved on 27 December.

During the election campaign, the public broadcaster ARD invited the most promising top candidates from the parties to a TV debate called the "Election Campaign Arena" on 15 February 2025, however BSW was excluded. Sahra Wagenknecht filed a constitutional complaint to ensure that the BSW was also invited. However, the courts decided that the BSW did not have a significance comparable to that of the other invited parties at that time.

In the summer months of 2024, the BSW polled at over 10% of the vote, and polled as high as 7.9% as late as 5 February, but the party ultimately received 4.9% of the vote, coming just short of the 5% threshold that would have entitled it to Bundestag seats. Wagenknecht's former party, The Left, recorded its best result since 2017, 8.8%, following a late surge in momentum. The BSW would only outperform The Left in Saxony-Anhalt, finishing behind The Left in all other states.

After the federal election, Wagenknecht left open what the result meant for her and her party. She did not appear publicly, with the BSW's co-chair Amira Mohamed Ali delivering the post-election press statements. Before the election, Wagenknecht had said "The election is of course also a decision about my political future. Anyone who is not in the Bundestag is no longer a relevant factor in German politics."

In BSW official statement at the federal press conference the day after the election, Sahra Wagenknecht blamed the media and the polling institute Forsa for the failure. A "negative media campaign" had contributed to the failure of her party. In addition, she claimed that the polling outfit Forsa had always reported BSW vote shares that were too low in its poll results and had engaged in "targeted manipulation". Wagenknecht's accusations were hardly taken into account; the DJV called them "absurd".

She also stated that she sees the result "as a mandate to further develop the BSW and lead it into the Bundestag by 2029 at the latest". Jürgen W. Falter attributed the party's defeat to "internal factional struggles and resignations", pointing to Wagenknecht's dispute with Katja Wolf, BSW's regional chairperson in Thuringia.

Internal disputes

After the poor result for BSW in the German Federal election, Wagenknecht blamed BSWs participation in the government in Thuringia, accusing state party Katja Wolf of being partly responsible for the BSW's poor performance in the federal election. Though Wolf built the largest and most successful BSW regional association in Germany, she is considered to represent a pragmatic political position, as opposed to Wagenknecht's more radical position, and under Wolf's leadership BSW is participating of the Thuringian state government with the CDU and SPD. Ultimately, Wolf would be challenged for leadership of the Thuringian BSW by Anke Wirsing, who was backed by Wagenknecht. In April 2025, Wolf would defeat Wirsing and retain control of the Thuringian branch of the party.

Later history

In September 2025, the BSW won 40 seats in the North Rhine-Westphalia local elections.

On 10 November 2025, Sahra Wagenknecht stepped down as the chair of the party and was replaced by the party's MEP Fabio De Masi. However, Wagenknecht stated that she would continue to maintain an "active leadership role" in the party.

Ever since the BSW began holding seats in state parliaments, there has been internal disput within the party regarding how constructively it should engage in state-level politics. Sahra Wagenknecht advocates for a stance of fundamental opposition, whereas figures such as Katja Wolf, who serves as Deputy Minister-President in Thuringia, are actively involved in shaping policy.

On 5 January 2026, in the wake of a coalition dispute between the SPD and BSW in Brandenburg, Deputy Minister-President Robert Crumbach announced at a news conference that he was leaving the BSW, calling it unfit for the responsibilities of governing. Minister-President Dietmar Woidke dissolved the coalition and formed a new one with the CDU. He kept Crumbach, a former SPD member, as deputy Minister-President and finance minister. Crumbach later rejoined the SPD in March. The two other BSW ministers of the fourth Woidke cabinet, health minister Britta Müller and infrastructure minister Detlef Tabbert, also left the party. Crumbach was replaced as BSW state chair by Friederike Benda. Three other MPs who left the BSW during the crisis formed their own group We for Brandenburg. The BSW parliamentary group, which had originally consisted of 14 members following the 2024 state election, gradually shrank to eight members as a result. In October 2026, parliamentary group leader Olaf Lüders announced that the BSW intended to work more closely with the ring-wing AfD in the Brandenburg state parliament.

The BSW won no seats in the 2026 Baden-Württemberg state election and the 2026 Rhineland-Palatinate state election.

In September 2026, 13 of the 15 BSW members of the Landtag of Thuringia, as well as the entire state executive committee, left the party (and have since regrouped into two parties: Your Vote Counts and Thüringen.Gerecht) in protest of increased public pressure from Wagenknecht to end its participation in the Voigt cabinet.

Intra-party structure

The BSW has a unique organisation compared to other parties in Germany. Compared to its electoral performance, it has a small and intentionally limited membership base. Unlike other parties, BSW distinguishes between full members and "registered supporters". Applicants for membership must be vouched for by an existing member, and all applications must be approved by the party's federal executive board. The membership was initially capped at 450, most of them being close associates of Wagenknecht and party functionaries with the aim to build the party. In March 2024, the party had 17,000 registered supporters, 8,000 applications for membership, and 500 full members. The party aimed to have "no more than" 1,000 members by the end of the year, and only around 2,000 by the 2025 German federal election. At that time, Wagenknecht explained: "We just make sure that no one comes in who doesn't share our program or who would appear destructive and chaotic."

Journalists were barred from the founding conferences of the state associations in Lower Saxony and Bremen.

The first party executive elected in February 2024 is as follows:

State branches

Most current state parliaments have 5 year terms and had held their last election before BSW state branches were founded or able to fulfill requirements. Unless members defected to BSW, BSW is not represented. For the state elections the BSW participated in since 2024, see Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance#State parliaments (Landtage)

Ideology and platform

Academic and media descriptions

The BSW has been variously described as populist, socialist, economically socialist, anti-capitalist, cultural conservative, social-conservative, anti-immigration, left-wing populist, left-wing nationalist, Eurosceptic, pro-Russia and left-conservative. The latter label is used in part due to its left-wing economic positions and right-wing stances on some cultural issues, which have been described by Wurthmann as being popular among anti-establishment and right-leaning voters. Research by Wondreys, March, and Pytlas, published in the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, classified BSW as a part of the European radical left, and noted that the party originates from the "reform communist" faction within Die Linke led by Wagenknecht, which was in conflict with the democratic socialist majority faction. BSW is considered to draw "from 1970s left-wing movements and 1990s "native worker" rhetoric", and has been compared to the Spanish Podemos party.

The Federal Agency for Civic Education, the German federal government agency that promotes understanding of political issues, described the BSW as "left-conservative" in 2024, writing that the party "stands for left-wing economic and social policies that focus on greater redistribution, higher taxes for large corporations and high incomes, as well as conservative cultural policies that seek to limit immigration and critically question climate protection measures". The Federal Agency for Civic Education described the party in a very similar way in 2025, classifying it as "left-wing in terms of economic policy" while noting that "in terms of social policy, however, the BSW also takes some conservative positions".

On the left–right political spectrum, the party is widely regarded as a far-left party. It is also described as hard left. Some also consider it left-wing, while others argue that the party is conservative on some cultural issues such as immigration and gender; this combination of stances has been compared to those of Old Left parties such as the Socialist Party (SP) in the Netherlands and the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). Sarah Wagner, a lecturer in political science at Queen's University Belfast, and a former postdoctoral researcher at the University of Mannheim, who has studied Wagenknecht's political rise, commented: "We can't really say exactly how many people align themselves with left-conservative values. But what we can say is that it's a significant group. We have never seen this combination in a party in Germany before." Carsten Linnemann (CDU) described Wagenknecht as a "left, and/or right-wing extremist" and a "communist". The Guardian described the party as "combining both leftwing and rightwing policies – campaigning on everything from more generous pensions and an increase in the minimum wage to constraining climate protection measures and toughening asylum regulations".

Policies and political positions

The political positions of the BSW include further restrictions on immigration, a plan for deglobalisation, opposition to green politics, ending military aid to Ukraine, and a negotiated settlement to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Wagenknecht considers the BSW to stand primarily in opposition to Alliance 90/The Greens. In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Wagenknecht stated that her party is "obviously not right-wing", instead being left-wing in the sense of "striving for more social justice, good wages, decent pensions" and "a foreign policy that returns to the tradition of détente instead of relying more and more on the military card". However, Wagenknecht omitted the label left-wing (links) within the name of the new party, saying that "many people today associate [it] with completely different content" and with "elitist debates", and that the BSW would appeal to a "broad spectrum of potential voters". Wagenknecht felt that The Left had become socially liberal and what she called "left-lifestyle" rather than left-wing, and accused progressives in The Left of being "too focused on diet, pronouns, and the perception of racism" as opposed to "poverty and an ever-growing gap between rich and poor."

The party's economic program focuses on economic justice, reducing social inequality, and wealth redistribution; its demands include redistributing the wealth to German workers, rolling back neoliberal policies and protecting domestic industries from global market pressures. It is sceptical of capitalism as a socioeconomic system. Wagenknecht published a five-page manifesto that also focused on deteriorating bridges and roads, bad mobile phone reception and internet, and overwhelmed administrations. The BSW claims to represent the interests of "low earners" and supports "public welfare-oriented politics", where welfare would stand above "egoistic interests". BSW is strongly critical of growing social injustice, the power and influence of multinational corporations, and the German taxation system, which it decries as unfair. It calls for state intervention against market-dominating companies and infringing "digital monopolists", listing Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple as examples; it argues that large corporations undermine democracy and must be broken down. The BSW rejects market economy, denouncing it as a system that causes concentration of wealth in the hands of the few and leads to a situation where companies reach record dividends "while the queues in front of food banks become longer and longer". The party states that until now, "redistribution worked from the hard-working to the upper 10,000". As a solution, it proposes additional taxation of the wealthy, dissolution and decentralisation of large companies, and anti-lobbyism laws. The BSW also calls for nationalization of key industries and more collective bargaining coverage for the workers.

Election results

European Parliament

The 9 June 2024 European Parliament election in Germany, held in connection with many local elections, was the first major election the BSW participated in. The usual 5% election threshold does not apply, around 1% is enough to win one of 96 seats assigned to Germany, thus more than a dozen German parties are presented in the EP, many more than within German parliaments.

State parliaments (Landtage)

See Next elections in Germany for more upcoming elections.

Reactions

The Left (Die Linke)

Many members and activists within the party were relieved that Wagenknecht was leaving after months of hinting and speculation. Party members criticised BSW members of the Bundestag for not returning their mandates they had won for The Left. Some politicians of The Left expressed disappointment at the behavior of Wagenknecht's followers. Chairman Martin Schirdewan said that he was "personally disappointed" with the defectors, who he said had damaged the party, and called on them to return their seats in the Bundestag to The Left. The Left vice-chairman Lorenz Gösta Beutin described Wagenknecht's formation of the party as motivated by personal financial gain: "The millionaire Wagenknecht is founding a party for Wagenknecht in order to collect corporate donations for a Wagenknecht party."

The council of Left Youth Solid, the youth wing of The Left, was pleased with Wagenknecht's exit from the party, stating: "Our fight has finally paid off: we were longingly awaiting her departure and called on the party to kick her out. The party can now begin the process of renewal." The Left deputy parliamentary group leader Gesine Lötzsch said that a party founded by Wagenknecht should not be viewed as an opponent or enemy but as competition. She said they would look closely at how this party develops and what positions it takes up from The Left. She added: "The real danger that I see is that our country is moving more and more to the right. If The Left parliamentary group no longer exists in the Bundestag, it will be even more difficult to stand against the governing coalition."

Social Democratic Party (SPD)

The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) general secretary Kevin Kühnert commented that "Sahra Wagenknecht has been a very established one-woman opposition for 30 years. But there is not a single political measure that is linked to her political activity where something has become better for people", and added that as Wagenknecht is rarely present in the Bundestag, he is not too worried about her new party.

Christian Democratic Union (CDU)

The Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), which passed a resolution of incompatibility with both The Left and the AfD, discussed ways to deal with BSW. Wagenknecht offered to the CDU a coalition government if there was no majority without the AfD in the 2024 Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg state elections. The Brandenburg CDU parliamentary group leader Jan Redmann said that they should wait and see the next developments, a position that was also reflected by the CDU in Thuringia. CDU deputy party leader Andreas Jung told Die Welt: "Anti-Americanism, proximity to Putin, and socialism are completely incompatible with our stance." Former agriculture minister Julia Klöckner expressed her view that a resolution of incompatibility should also apply to BSW, while Lower Saxony CDU leader Sebastian Lechner stated that there was a need for clarification, as BSW cannot be subsumed under the CDU's incompatibility decision with The Left and AfD, and that Wagenknecht's new party would have to make its own decision. CDU chairman Friedrich Merz said that BSW could take votes from the AfD, while former president Joachim Gauck (who never was a CDU member) commented that BSW could also attract dissatisfied SPD voters.

Alternative for Germany (AfD)

After the announcement of BSW's formation, the Brandenburg branch of the AfD reportedly feared a loss of votes in eastern Germany for the September 2024 Brandenburg state election.

Media

In Germany, the Bild described Wagenknecht as a right-wing socialist, while Die Tageszeitung said that she promotes "socialism with a right-wing code". Party researchers generally assume that BSW could challenge the AfD for votes due to its views about the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and migration. Deutschlandfunk commented: "For the AfD, a Wagenknecht party would be direct competition that could cost it a few percentage points and reduce its own voter potential among those disappointed by politics. Both the future Die Linke and the AfD lack charismatic figures like Wagenknecht." T-Online commented that, alongside The Left and the AfD, BSW also posed a threat to the centre-right Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP), with around 26% of FDP voters willing to consider the party. It argued that although the FDP and BSW are opposites on most issues, with the FDP standing for economic liberalism, the bases of both parties are critical of German migration policy.

About BSW attracting AfD voters, Die Zeit stated: "Even if Wagenknecht wants to limit rather than promote immigration, she is not yet known to have openly racist and right-wing extremist attitudes and resentments. In this respect, it would be welcome if at least some of the AfD voters turned to a Wagenknecht party." Similarly, Der Spiegel argued: "If the party is founded, the new movement could lure away voters from the AfD. That would not be a bad thing on the surface: left-wing populism à la Wagenknecht is still better than a party on the far right. That is why they are afraid of the new group there." Handelsblatt commented that Wagenknecht could do what Merz has failed to do, namely "the halving of the AfD". The Green European Journal argued that BSW might contribute to "saving democracy by fighting the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) on its own turf".

In Britain, The Spectator questioned whether Wagenknecht would succeed with her party, citing the "element of the personality cult". The Guardian stated that, along with the surge of far-right AfD in the polls, the rise of Wagenknecht's party signals rising discontent of the general population with the ruling Scholz cabinet, which Wagenknecht described as "the worst government in its history"; according to the polls, if an election were to take place in October 2023, BSW could win up to 20% of the national vote. The newspaper also commented that the new party puts The Left at risk of political irrelevance, as the party has long suffered from infighting and declining electoral returns. Political scientist Andrea Römmele described BSW as "an alternative to the Alternative for Germany", arguing that the party could claim support lost by The Left to the AfD in the new states. Political scientist Benjamin Höhne commented: "The niche BSW is opening up – stressing social justice, and at the same time ... [Wagenknecht] positioning herself in a more migration-sceptical way – has potential." In Italy, the Corriere della Sera described BSW as the "mirror image of the AfD".