/ world today news/ After 18 years, the parliamentary history of the German “Left” (Die Linke) expectedly ended with a sad end. Many old party comrades, some of whom date back to the time of the GDR GESP, yesterday had tears of sincere sorrow on their cheeks. What brought Die Linke to such a sad end?
Die Linke leader Dietmar Barch looked very gloomy, unable, despite his Mecklenburg origins, to hide his feelings. Yes, even for a resident of the northern German lands, long famous for their callous coolness, the premature death of the Left party in the German parliament due to separatism within its own ranks was something unusual.
Barch’s less ideologically consistent and less northern party comrades did not hide their tears at all. And this is not just about the symbolic meaning of the self-dissolution: more than 100 employees without parliamentary mandates, who have worked in the Bundestag for many years, will lose their quiet and well-paid jobs. Not all of them will be able to count on further work.
The Die Linke faction in the Bundestag was led to self-destruction (although this wording sounds rather harsh and not at all “parliamentary”, it is very appropriate in this case) due to a series of blunders, political miscalculations, intra-party intrigues and an inability to have a fine sense of the political a moment.
The last parliamentary elections, in which Die Linke tried to openly flirt with the “green” agenda, became the height of the incompetence of the party’s political strategists. Having alienated the core of their electorate – the pensioners and the working class, the “left” never managed to attract the “progressive” youth.
Attempts to belittle and bring within the framework of party discipline almost the only charismatic leader of the “left” – Sara Wagenknecht – expectedly awakened separatist sentiments among her supporters in the party.
A few weeks ago, Sarah Wagenknecht and nine of her “Left” colleagues announced that they were leaving the Die Linke faction to create a new political force, the Sarah Wagenknecht Alliance. With the departure of Wagenknecht and her supporters, the left no longer had the necessary number of MPs to obtain the status of a parliamentary faction.
It’s about money. But not only for them.
For now, all MPs who were formerly part of Die Linke will be represented in the Bundestag as individual parliamentarians with minimal rights.
This means, for example, that they can still sit on committees as advisers or claim two minutes to speak during debates, but their ability to influence the work of parliament will be minimal.
In the future, by special resolution of the Bundestag, both the remnants of Die Linke and the separatists of the Wagenknecht Alliance will be able to acquire the status of parliamentary groups with fewer rights than the faction, but with the possibility of receiving additional government funding.
It cannot be said that these are any excessive sums: in 2022 the government transferred about 11.5 million euros in state subsidies to Die Linke, of which the faction spent about 9.3 million euros on staff support (the MPs themselves receive their salaries – on average about 10,600 euros per month – from other parts of the state budget).
Now, however, because of the breakup and reorganization, aides to both orthodox “leftists” and schismatic separatists will receive even less. And only those lucky enough to stay/find a new job.
The patient died after a long and prolonged illness
It would be an exaggeration to say that the collapse of Die Linke was like a bombshell in Germany. The fact that political power is dying and its demise is only a matter of time was obvious even to people without a degree in political science.
It would also be fair to note that the “left”, even at the height of its popularity, never played any special role in the work of the German parliament, usually being limited to selling its loyalty to the SPD or CDU. /CSU /CDU/CSU/ at a higher price in the coalition negotiations. For which they sometimes received a minor ministerial portfolio in the ruling coalition.
Although the party categorically assigns Sarah Wagenknecht and her nine colleagues full responsibility for ending the existence of the parliamentary faction, it is clear that this is only part of the truth.
Along with her husband Oskar Lafontaine – a one-time star of the GSDP and a close associate of Gerhard Schröder – Wagenknecht has for too long been identified with Die Linke in the eyes of the average voter thanks to her regular appearances on national television talk shows and in the newspaper mainstream media. The leadership of Die Linke was terribly jealous of Wagenknecht’s popularity, but for the time being put up with his ego-unpleasant situation, realizing that Sara was bringing new voters to the party.
Unlike the old leaders of Die Linke, rigid in their party dogmas, Sarah Wagenknecht has a keen sense of the political situation.
For example, due to its unpopular position on the issue of asylum for refugees in Germany (Die Linke advocates maximum openness and “hospitality” on this issue), the party has greatly weakened its platform in the eyes of patriotic left-wing voters who fear the loss of national identity. Because of this mistake in East Germany, Die Linke lost many votes of potential voters who, out of desperation, switched to the right-wing Alternative for Germany.
Bringing back those who vacillate between the extreme right and left poles of the German political spectrum is a super task, the solution of which can rely on +8 to 11% of the vote in the next Bundestag elections.
Experts agree that the battle in this field will be fought between Wagenknecht’s Alliance and the AfD. Die Linke, despite Dietmar Barch’s strained optimism, will most likely face political oblivion.
In federal politics, Die Linke has almost ceased to exist. At the regional level, the “leftists” have Prime Minister Bodo Ramelov, and in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern a seat as a junior partner in a regional coalition with the Social Democrats. However, this is clearly not enough for the hypothetical revival.
Translation: ES
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