2024-01-31 21:30:57
Sahra Wagenknecht, the favorite agitator of German politics, has finally launched her party with the complicated name of Sahra Wagenknecht Justice and Reason Alliance (BSW, for its acronym in German) and with the promise of fighting against job insecurity, raising wages and benefits, and restrict immigration and asylum policies.
After years of speculation, the German and some international media have rushed forward to predict that the new “left-wing conservative” party will be a “shock” to the German party system and could “gain the support that the extreme extremists have today.” right”.
But is it possible that the new formation of Wagenknecht, former member of the far-left party Die Linke (The Left), is the “miraculous antidote” that will neutralize the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD, for its acronym in German)?
From what we’ve seen in neighboring nations like Denmark and the Netherlands, there isn’t much chance that Wagenknecht, an iconic figure on the German left, will be able to win working-class voters out of the clutches of the AfD. In fact, Wagenknecht and his new party will most likely only serve to further legitimize the far-right agenda.
The time to launch Wagenknecht’s new party is the best, there is no doubt about that. The national statistics office warned this week that Germany is heading for the first two-year recession since the early 2000s. Led by Olaf Scholz, the current tripartite coalition in government is deeply unpopular and there is much resistance to the new round of austerity policies coming. In the polls, the center-left party SPD (Scholz) and the Greens only obtain 28% of the votes, both together!
Die Linke, Wagenknecht’s former formation, consistently obtains around 4% in the polls, a percentage that continues to keep the party below the minimum to enter Parliament. The AfD, meanwhile, has gained many supporters in recent times, and especially among former Die Linke voters.
Another factor in favor of launching the BSW now is an extremely favorable electoral calendar. Three state elections are scheduled for the autumn in the east of the country, and the proportional system that Germany uses for the European elections (held in June) sets a minimum of just 1% of the national vote to obtain a seat in the European Parliament. With the AfD largely ostracized, the German media is also desperate to find a new “populist” party to give more favorable coverage.
In German politics, Wagenknecht was only relevant for a few years, as co-leader of the opposition between 2015 and 2017. But throughout his career he has enjoyed a disproportionate media presence. In fact, you could say that Wagenknecht is above all a media phenomenon.
Her colleagues at Die Linke distrusted her and ended up leaving her aside. She later led Aufstehen (Arise), a “collective movement” that did not prosper and is the failed precedent of her new party. Despite all this, Wagenknecht has continued to appear in the German media as one of the most prominent and popular politicians.
Probably the most important thing about his new party is the enormous electoral potential it has. In September 2023, a survey revealed that one in five Germans “could imagine” voting for the (yet-to-be-created) party. As the German political scientist Sarah Wagner recently argued, although a relevant part of the German electorate has left-wing economic opinions coexisting with right-wing cultural opinions, no party in Germany offers a “left-wing authoritarian” (or “left-wing conservative”) program. Unlike other far-right parties in Western Europe, such as the National Rally in France (RN); or like the Party for Freedom, in the Netherlands (PVV); The AfD has not (yet) moved beyond the pro-market economic program to embrace a sovereign welfare state program.
Wagner and other political scientists agree that Wagenknecht “has the ability to build bridges between left and right” but are not so sure that current AfD voters are “willing to turn their backs on the AfD and vote instead.” to a Wagenknecht game.”
Although citizens within the “left-wing authoritarian” group tend not to vote, when they do, their ballot is more likely to go to the right than to the left, especially if the political agenda is dominated by cultural issues such as immigration, as has been the case for most of the 21st century.
These are the issues that continue to dominate, hence the “anti-immigration” and “anti-immigration” discourse. Woke” by Wagenknecht only serves to set the topics of debate for the extreme right. In most cases, that means more electoral support for the far right and not less, as the last Dutch election in November 2023 demonstrated.
The Socialist Party of the Netherlands (SP) campaigned as the “old left” and combined classic left positions on health policy, for example, with calls to curb migrant workers, and a popular leader, Lilian Marijnissen, who charged against “identity politics.” But he lost again, while the extreme right obtained (in total) a record number of votes since the beginning of the postwar period.
In some countries this “left-conservative” approach [también llamado rojipardo en países como España]” has indeed led to a loss of support for the extreme right. In Denmark, for example, the approach benefited the social democrats. But even in that case it was largely due to internal problems within the far-right formation that ended up giving way to a new and successful anti-immigration party in Denmark.
There is no doubt that Wagenknecht’s party will do well electorally in 2024, but it is unlikely to transform the German political system. His departure from Die Linke led to the party’s dissolution in parliament, but Wagenknecht was only the final nail in the coffin, not responsible for his demise.
Although Wagenknecht has pledged to “save democracy,” he will most likely contribute to weakening it by generalizing and normalizing the narrative and policies of the far right.
Translation by Francisco de Zárate
#redpartyism #stay #farright #voters