To start with, there was a warm shower of money: the couple Lotte Salingré and Thomas Stanger from West Mecklenburg donated one million euros to the new alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW). They told the editorial network Germany that the new party should be given the same starting chances for the coming elections as established political forces.
The couple made money in the high-tech industry and supported Wagenknecht’s “peace policy.” “We want conflicts to be resolved without weapons and wars. At the moment, all the other parties that we were eligible to vote for are relying more on arms deliveries to crisis areas than on diplomatic conflict resolution,” said 60-year-old Salingré.
The new party of ex-leftist Sahra Wagenknecht met in Berlin for its founding party conference. According to her namesake, she wants to win over people who are disappointed by the traffic light coalition. There are “so many problems, uncertainty, but also indignation and anger,” she said. Many people have become “politically homeless.”
At the congress, the party executive committee was completed by chairmen Wagenknecht and Amira Mohamed Ali. The delegates elected Friederike Benda from Berlin and Amid Rabieh from North Rhine-Westphalia as deputy party leaders. Both were previously active for the Left, Rabieh as deputy NRW state chairman.
“We are now setting out to change politics in Germany,” said Wagenknecht to the applause of almost 400 delegates. She herself was “afraid of the AfD gaining strength,” said Wagenknecht. But anyone who really wants to weaken the party should also demonstrate for a minimum wage of at least 14 euros, higher pensions and affordable energy.
In detail, their program for the European elections calls for an end to arms aid for Ukraine, oil and gas imports from Russia, asylum procedures at external borders and overall more Germany and less EU.
