Wagenknecht wants to decide on the founding of the party by the end of the year

Dthe left-wing member of the Bundestag Sarah Wagenknecht gives itself until the end of the year to decide on founding its own party. “By the end of the year it must be clear how things will continue,” said the left-wing politician to the news portal “ZDFheute.de”. The decision whether to found a party or not will be made “within the next nine months”. Her weighing process also includes the question of her health: “As a one-woman show, I can’t do that.”

Wagenknecht’s rejection of another candidacy for the left had fueled new speculation about a split in the party. She recently caused irritation in her party with her positions on the Ukraine war.

Wagenknecht continued: “Founding a party depends on conditions, including legal ones. You have to build structures. The expectation that one could – even if one had decided – just launch a party like this, from one week to the next, that would be doomed to failure.”

There has been speculation about Wagenknecht’s further path for weeks. At the beginning of the month, party chairman Martin Schirdewan also commented on this. He said he was not aware of anyone wanting to leave the Left Party parliamentary group. The “speculations by a few” about founding a new party are harmful and irresponsible for the left. “And they are not supported by the members of the party either,” said Schirdewan. In conversations with the party base, he found that “nobody has an interest in any form of a new founding”.

The left had lost a good 6,400 members last year and was last at around 54,200. Schirdewan said: “The loss of members hurts me a lot.” He hopes that members who have left will keep the path to the party open.