BSW calls for new elections in Thuringia after Katja Wolf founded the party

After entering the state parliament, the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) in Saxony-Anhalt is calling for “new elections” for the Thuringian state parliament as quickly as possible. "The people of Thuringia must be able to decide for themselves whether they want Katja Wolf's rubble troops in the state parliament and in a government. Anyone who founds a new party and wants to continue to govern at the same time should have the courage to face the voters with this party," said BSW top candidate and state leader Thomas Schulze to WELT on Monday.

On Sunday the BSW entered the Magdeburg state parliament. The ex-BSW politician and Thuringian Deputy Prime Minister Katja Wolf founded the “Thüringen.Gerecht” party on the same day. Wolf is its chairman. Previously, she and nine other BSW MPs resigned from the BSW in protest against Sahra Wagenknecht's rapprochement with the AfD - and criticized this as "flirting with right-wing radicals". Wolf wants to stick to the coalition with the CDU and SPD under Prime Minister Mario Voigt (CDU), now with her new party.

"We promised to ensure stability and reliability in Thuringia. Now we invite everyone to put this promise into practice together with us," Wolf previously explained the party's founding. Voigt welcomed the step: “The founding of Thuringia.Gerecht creates clarity and orderly conditions.”

Voigt has been under pressure since Chemnitz University of Technology stripped him of his doctorate because of alleged plagiarism. The CDU politician is suing. AfD state leader Björn Höcke previously announced a request for new elections. The AfD failed in August with a constructive vote of no confidence in the state parliament.

Schulze is now attacking his former Thuringian colleagues head-on after his electoral success. "Katja Wolf is now founding her own political shambles. The only thing that holds these people together are well-paid parliamentary mandates and ministerial positions at the expense of the taxpayer," said Schulze about the founding of the party. “Politically, the main thing is to keep Mario Voigt and the CDU in office and thus continue a policy for which this new party was never elected by the people of Thuringia.”

Wolf and her colleague Steffen Schütz, Digital and Infrastructure Minister of Thuringia, “stand for a type of politics that massively damages people’s trust in democratic parties,” said Schulze. Without Sahra Wagenknecht, both of them would not have their current positions.

Wolf should give back her mandate and stand for a state election. "Katja Wolf tried to get a fat ministerial diet using Sahra Wagenknecht's name. To do this, she then politically betrayed Sahra Wagenknecht and the many BSW voters in Thuringia to the CDU," said Schulze. “Anyone who owes their mandate to a party and its voters and then uses this mandate to found a completely new party should not rely on a supposed voter mandate.” Continuing her work in the state parliament would be “indecent towards the BSW voters in Thuringia”.

The BSW could play a decisive role in Saxony-Anhalt. On the evening of the election, Schulze and his co-leading candidate Claudia Wittig emphasized that they also wanted to work with the right-wing extremist state AfD under Ulrich Siegmund in the state parliament.

Wittig and Schulze ruled out a coalition, but left it open whether they would support an agreement to work with an AfD-led minority government. In a possible third round of voting to elect the new Prime Minister, the BSW would abstain - thereby paving the way for Siegmund to take office.