Left faction leader Amira Mohamed Ali is resigning from her post because of her party’s dealings with Sahra Wagenknecht.
“I have decided not to run for the chairmanship of the Left Party in the Bundestag in the coming board elections,” said Mohamed Ali in a statement that was available to the German Press Agency. “This decision has political reasons.” The final tipping point was the distancing of the party leadership from Wagenknecht at the beginning of June.
This shows the crack in the left more and more clearly. Mohamed Ali, who has led the group together with Dietmar Bartsch since 2019, is considered to be Wagenknecht’s confidant. This has fallen out with the party leadership around the chairmen Janine Wissler and Martin Schirdewan and is considering founding their own party. Wagenknecht wants to make a decision before the end of the year. Polls suggest a Wagenknecht party’s chances of success.
Mohamed Ali: The party’s course contradicts my beliefs
In her statement, Mohamed Ali gives several reasons for the planned withdrawal from the group leadership, which will be re-elected at the beginning of September. The 43-year-old writes that she is finding it increasingly difficult to represent the course of the party leadership in public. This contradicts their political convictions in many places. Among other things, she criticized the fact that no “fundamental no to the wrong course of the traffic light government” was formulated, for example to climate policy, which puts a financial burden on people. There is also a lack of “a clear yes to a consistent peace policy”.
The party leadership wants to win over disappointed Green voters, she said. But you can’t reach those for whom left-wing politics should be made, not even AfD voters who can still be won back.
“The final tipping point for my decision was the unanimous decision of the party executive of June 10, 2023 and the fact that the large majority of the state executives adopted this decision,” the statement said. “It says that Sahra Wagenknecht has no future in the left and that she should resign her mandate together with other members of parliament. This shows in a hitherto unknown clarity the desire and the goal to force part of the membership out of the party.”
Ulrich: Another nail in the coffin for the party
Several other supporters of Wagenknecht agreed with Mohamed Ali and regretted their withdrawal. The member of parliament Alexander Ulrich spoke of another nail in the coffin for the party. “Unfortunately, the left is degenerating into a sect,” he said. “We hope for Sahra Wagenknecht.”
Former Left Chairman Klaus Ernst complained on Twitter that a high-profile Left Party was no longer running for top office because of the policy of the party executive. Deputy Jessica Tatti said: “Anyone who constantly shows their own comrades the door shouldn’t be surprised if they eventually go through it.”
Wagenknecht party would be a danger for the left
For the parliamentary group, which is very small with 39 MPs, the internal division is a risk. It could lose its status as a parliamentary group and thus financial resources and influence if more than two MPs switched to a new party with Wagenknecht and left the parliamentary group. She left it open how Mohamed Ali would behave.
Wagenknecht had repeatedly criticized the party leadership and irritated with the possible founding of the party. Wissler and Schirdewan eventually pushed through the decision against Wagenknecht. In the meantime, they have made another decision that has met with criticism from parts of the party: they proposed refugee and climate activist Carola Rackete as the top left candidate for the European elections. Ernst spoke in the “Tagesspiegel” of a “ghost run by the political leadership of the left”.
