Break in the Thuringian BSW: the regional association breaks away from Wagenknecht

Erfurt. The blackberry coalition made up of the CDU, BSW and SPD in Thuringia has to reinvent itself: After years of dispute between BSW founder Sahra Wagenknecht and the Thuringian state chairwoman Katja Wolf, the BSW leadership and the majority of the state parliament members in Thuringia are drawing a line in the sand and leaving the party. These include the three previous BSW ministers. The opposition Left speaks of a “political crisis” and sees Prime Minister Mario Voigt’s (CDU) coalition as collapsed. But the 49-year-old wants to continue. “Today is a day of clarity,” he said.

Can the state government continue under Prime Minister Voigt?

That's Voigt and Wolf's plan. But it shouldn't be easy. So far, the unusual coalition of CDU, BSW and SPD has had a stalemate with 44 of 88 seats in parliament - and could not be outvoted by the opposition. That's changing now.

At the beginning of the week, a BSW MP resigned from the party.

In the middle of the week, three MPs announced their resignation from the party and parliamentary group.

Now a group of nine MPs led by Katja Wolf left the party. Wolf is finance minister and deputy prime minister.

This means that twelve MPs remain in the parliamentary group, ten of whom have declared that they are leaving the party, and two of whom are critical of Prime Minister Mario Voigt.

For the majority, this means that Voigt may now only be able to count on 39 instead of 44 votes. But not all actors have positioned themselves yet. The three breakaway MPs who want to found a new group had at least already signaled that, in their view, there was the greatest overlap with the coalition. However, this is not initially a guarantee of approval.

What is the role of the left?

Due to the stumbling of the coalition and the split of the Thuringian BSW leadership, the left's influence in Thuringia is likely to grow. Until now, Voigt's coalition was dependent on the behavior of the left in parliament - but now even more so. Thuringia's left-wing parliamentary group leader Christian Schaft called for new discussion formats. “As of today, in our view, the government coalition has collapsed,” he said.

What's next?

The executive board of the Thuringian BSW will resign, Wolf announced. The second state chairman, Gernot Süßmuth, has already announced that he is resigning from his position. A special party conference planned for Sunday, which was supposed to focus on Thuringia's controversial participation in the government, was canceled. According to the previous group leader Sigrid Hupach, the group initially continues to consist of twelve members, ten of whom no longer belong to the party. Next week we will discuss how the group will proceed. The MP Alexander Kästner brought up the idea of ​​dissolving and possibly re-establishing the company.

Prime Minister Voigt referred to the relationship of trust that has grown between the three partners over the past two years. “We have a common understanding of our government mandate.” SPD state leader Georg Maier said that he would “of course” first have to discuss the new situation in the party’s committees. “I can’t anticipate that now.”

Is such stable governance impossible?

There are several examples of how it can work: In Saxony, CDU Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer governs in a coalition that is ten votes short of a majority in the Saxon state parliament. The left usually helps out there too. In Thuringia, left-wing Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow steered the country through the corona pandemic for five years in his second term with a red-red-green minority government, among other things. At that time, red-red-green were four votes short. Votes from the CDU ensured the necessary majorities in parliament. The CDU parliamentary group leader at the time was called: Mario Voigt. But Ramelow's coalition also had to experience how it was outvoted by the opposition - with the help of the votes of the AfD, CDU and FDP.

How did the Thuringian BSW team break with Wagenknecht?

After the BSW's good performance with 15.8 percent in the state elections in September 2024, Wolf and Wagenknecht actually seemed to agree: they wanted to govern. Wagenknecht himself campaigned at a state party conference: "Agree with the coalition agreement today. I think it's a good compromise."

Then came the alienation. In 2025, Wagenknecht unsuccessfully urged Wolf to step down as state party chairman. The party founder described participation in the government in Thuringia as a mistake. At the BSW federal party conference in December 2025, the Thuringians already seemed isolated. The break became inevitable three weeks ago: Wagenknecht demanded that the BSW withdraw support from Voigt. Wolf and Co. refused.

What does this mean for the BSW as a whole?

From the perspective of the party leadership, the way is now clear for the new line: Wagenknecht no longer wants to govern with the established parties. Before Thuringia, participation in the government in Brandenburg collapsed, also after a falling out between the top candidate there, Robert Crumbach, and Wagenknecht. Crumbach joined the SPD parliamentary group with another BSW MP and paved the way for a majority between the SPD and CDU.

Officially, the new BSW model is a “non-partisan prime minister” who governs with changing majorities, including the AfD. However, there is no evidence of support for this concept from any other party - including the AfD. It remains to be seen whether the BSW can establish itself as a permanent fundamental opposition.

What does this mean for the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt?

The chaotic collapse of the party in neighboring Thuringia could give voters in Saxony-Anhalt pause. In surveys there, the BSW is just under 5 percent. The BSW top candidates Claudia Wittig and Thomas Schulze spoke in the "Welt" of a "tailwind" in the election campaign: "With Ms. Wolf's departure, the way is now clear in BSW Thuringia for the course that Sahra Wagenknecht stands for and that we consistently represent in Saxony-Anhalt."

However, Wagenknecht does not seem to be sure of the “tailwind” and assigns responsibility to his former Thuringian colleagues as a precaution: “Above all, the timing was chosen in order to do maximum damage to the party to which they owe their mandates and ministerial posts before the election in Saxony-Anhalt,” Wagenknecht told the German Press Agency. “Now everything is obviously being done to prevent the only consistent peace party from entering the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt.”