On December 6, the Linke Fraktion (The Left) in the Bundestag will unplug the plug that keeps it alive. It is the first time in Germany that a party has decided to dissolve itself coldly, in full legislature. This is actually an obligatory choice, after the decision of the MP Sahra Wagenknecht, former group leader from 2017 to 2019, to leave the Linke to found a new anti-European, pro-Russian and anti-migrant left-wing party, the «Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht».
The rule of the German parliament in fact provides that a Fraktion, i.e. a parliamentary group, is composed of at least 37 deputies. Currently in the old Linke there will remain 28, an insufficient number to constitute a Fraktion. From now on there will be two groups, which will weigh much less in terms of impact on parliamentary work than before. Compared to the Fraktion, a group has fewer rights and less public financial support. In 2022 Linke had around 11.5 million in state subsidies and paid salaries of 9.3 million euros. Now, the 108 collaborators who work for the Linke deputies will be fired, although many will be rehired in their respective groups. Many, but not all. The political data instead speaks of a now consolidated weakness of the left-wing formation, which has never recovered from the repeated defeats in the elections in the Laender of recent years and from a leadership crisis that has never been overcome. The Linke dissolves 16 years after its formation in 2007, born from the merger between the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the “Work and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative” (WAGS) Party. Wagenknecht, who founded the short-lived Aufstehen (Rise Up) movement in 2018, left her party in controversy with the ambition of building a left-wing populist formation competitive not only with the Linke from which it originates but also with the ‘ultra-right Alternative fuer Deutschland. However, two weeks after the founding of the party, the German media note that so far there has not been such a significant transfer of members. Among the most critical in evaluating the operation of the partner of the historic left-wing leader Oskar Lafontaine was Linke MP Gregor Gysi himself. “The deputies who leave and want to keep their mandate are behaving immorally,” said Gysi. The things they now criticize at Linke “they could have criticized already when they ran for office.”
Greetings,
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