The Sahra Wagenknecht alliance wants to carefully screen new members. You don't even have to give reasons for a rejection, says an expert in party law.
Anyone who is currently thinking about becoming a member of the new Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) party will have to search on the party's own homepage until he or she finds what they are looking for. It is much easier to find information about the forms of participation “sponsors” (donors) and “supporters” (help in founding a party). The reason for this is obvious.
“We are accused of being such a closed society because we only accept 450 members,” said Fabio De Masi, former left-wing politician and now BSW’s top candidate for the European elections, t online. “There are reasons for that. We do this to avoid something like that. If someone represents positions that would be racist, for example, then of course we don't want such members, that's completely clear. AfD membership would make us more alert. Protest voting is different than membership.”
Wagenknecht Party: “But there is certainly no obligation to join”
Is this behavior permissible – i.e. can a party decide as it sees fit who is allowed to participate and who is not? “A clear yes,” says Sebastian Roßner, a lawyer specializing in party law. Ippen.Media. “A party can choose who can join. The party law states that you don’t even have to give reasons for a rejection.” But there is certainly criticism of this in legal circles. “Some argue that, according to the Basic Law, parties are organs of citizens. It is sometimes derived from this that the party must at least justify why people are being denied membership. But there is certainly no obligation to take admission,” says Roßner.
When the association was founded in October 2023, the Bundestag member and new deputy chairman of BSW, Christian Leye, said: They wanted to grow in a controlled manner and pay attention to “slayers of fortune, careerists and people with political views that you don't want to be there.” “The 'problem' affects not only BSW, but all new parties. You want to make sure that a party doesn’t tip over, as may have happened with the AfD, for example,” says lawyer Roßner.
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He looked at BSW's statutes. His conclusion: “This reads like a completely normal statute, which only differs in nuances among the established parties when it comes to membership issues. But there are a few special features, for example with the FDP. Every new member there has to go through a kind of probationary period before they are accepted as a full member.” The possibility of initially becoming part of BSW as a “sponsor” or “supporter” has nothing to do with party membership. “Party members have rights and obligations guaranteed by law and the constitution. For example, you can submit motions, elect the party executive committee or delegates to the party conference or stand for election yourself. “Supporters” and “supporters” of BSW are not allowed to do that.”
The question remains as to how BSW plans to vet new members. “All common research methods are available, from Google searches to personal conversations. Of course, this must remain within the framework of the law; the mail, for example, must of course not be rummaged through.” The party left a query from our editorial team unanswered. “It is typically viewed critically if you have previously been a member of certain other parties or are a parallel member of another party, which the parties' statutes usually rule out anyway.” At BSW, it is primarily about how to deal with a previous AfD -Membership. On the question, whether people with former AfD membership would be excludedsaid De Masi: “Yes, AfD members have no place with us.”
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