Wagenknecht comes up again: top or split candidate

Sahra Wagenknecht is running for the Bundestag again in NRW. The state executive stood behind them. Others warn of harm to the party.

Sahra Wagenknecht wants to run again for the left in the federal election Photo: Reuters

BERLIN taz | The former parliamentary group leader of the Left Party, Sahra Wagenknecht, wants to run for the Bundestag again as the top candidate in North Rhine-Westphalia. The majority of the state executive backed the popular and polarizing left-wing politician on Saturday. In a meeting on Saturday, according to taz information, 15 of the 25 members voted to nominate Wagenknecht for number 1 on the state list. However, Wagenknecht will not be officially chosen as a candidate until the state representative assembly, which will meet on March 13 and 14.

In the run-up, there had been disputes in the party over Wagenknecht’s nomination. Not only because she hardly shows up in North Rhine-Westphalia and has lived with her husband Oskar Lafontaine in Saarland for a long time.

Also because Wagenknecht repeatedly criticizes the course of her party on issues such as migration and climate protection, criticism of which opinions differ. Wagenknecht has currently worked in several Interviews against the endless lockdown agile and especially the school and daycare closings described as unreasonable. The crux of the matter: The left largely supports them or even orders them, in the three countries where they rule.

The former state spokeswoman for the North Rhine-Westphalian Left, Gunhild Böth, had warned the state executive in an email the day before the meeting on Saturday against setting up Wagenknecht as the top candidate. At the state representatives’ meeting “there will certainly be a debate about some of their positions,” writes Böth in the mail that the taz has received. “This will take place in front of the cameras and all media. […] All old disputes are dug out of the archives. What voters have long forgotten is coming up again. “

So it is the bad press for the left and the re-opening wounds in the party that fertilize Boeth. “In my opinion, the state association of North Rhine-Westphalia can only lose if Sahra is a candidate – and so does she. The party as a whole would be harmed; the election result would not get any better because it is well known that voters do not want any disputes, ”she concluded.

If only she stayed in Saarland

Böth therefore suggests: “It would be nice if Sahra were to run for office in Saarland (that’s where she lives, it’s understandable that she’s running there).” probably the only place on the state list for the federal election. Not a good basis for Wagenknecht.

Wagenknecht said on Saturday that she would like to run again in North Rhine-Westphalia. “Right now it is bitterly necessary to counter the social injustices and the mismanagement of the government in the corona crisis with convincing alternatives.”