Things could hardly have gone better for Sahra Wagenknecht. Just a few days ago, your BSW was divided and lagging behind in the polls. Now it's still at odds, but back in the game. Even entering the Magdeburg state parliament is a success for Wagenknecht. The fact that she can now raise or lower her thumb over the future state government is a triumph.
Nevertheless, the situation for Wagenknecht is now complicated; she is in a dilemma. She grew up as a populist by cultivating anger against the “old parties”. But now she is so powerful in Magdeburg that she has to find a way to keep the anger simmering and still give the impression that she is not shirking responsibility. Now she has to find compromises - and she grew up by refusing to compromise.
However, Wagenknecht should not have at least one problem in Saxony-Anhalt: that the party that she founded will develop a life of its own, as in Thuringia and Brandenburg, where the BSW has completely disintegrated. If you believe Wagenknecht's critics, then she has been working for a long time to bring the troops in Saxony-Anhalt into line, and at the moment everything indicates that she has succeeded in doing so.
The BSW has five representatives in the new state parliament in Magdeburg. Five politicians on whom it now largely depends whether an AfD prime minister will come to power for the first time. First of all, there are the two top candidates Claudia Wittig and Thomas Schulze. Wittig teaches as a historian at the Martin Luther University in Halle and was already involved in the Left Party. Schulze worked, among other things, in the correctional system and only began his political career when he joined the BSW at the age of sixty.
Both have not deviated from Wagenknecht's line during the election campaign and in the days since the election: no direct election of AfD man Ulrich Siegmund as Prime Minister, but indirect support through abstention in the third round of voting; no coalition with the AfD, but definitely substantive cooperation. The same applies to John Lucas Dittrich, who leads the regional association together with Schulze. The student teacher also sounds a lot like the BSW founder when he describes the firewall policy towards the AfD as “obscure”.
That leaves Margitta Kriebel and Michael Reim. The two have barely appeared in public so far, which is unusual for politicians who have been placed third and fourth on the list by their party. We know that Kriebel is a forestry engineer and wants to work for rural areas; Reim works in the IT industry and is particularly interested in digital topics. One would have liked to know more about them: How do you think the BSW can live up to its responsibility as the tip of the scales? How do they both feel about the AfD? But you can't even find contact details for them online, and an inquiry to the press office doesn't lead any further.
Those who hide their own people like this may be afraid of losing control. This is a fear that Wagenknecht is often said to have. But not even her critics believe that she has to worry about her troops in Saxony-Anhalt. Kriebel and Reim are also completely in line, say former party members who know the two - just as the entire regional association now consists of Wagenknecht loyalists. Or as Katja Wendland puts it: “There are only followers and yes-men.”
Wendland was once on the Saxony-Anhalt state board of the BSW and until recently was chairwoman of the Burgenland district. Four weeks before the election, she and twenty others publicly left the regional association. The party leadership was accused of an authoritarian leadership style, job haggling and rapprochement with the AfD.
Wendland can precisely date the day on which she first had the feeling that the demarcation to the far right was becoming fragile. It was last April, she was still managing director of the BSW in Saxony-Anhalt, and the state board met in Freyburg for a retreat. A story made the rounds there: At a so-called BSW supporters' conference in Stendal, a certain Robert Farle was given the opportunity to express himself at length. Farle sat in the Bundestag for the AfD, but left the party because he found it too critical of Russia. BSW regional director Schulze was also present at the conference. The fact that he didn't intervene horrified Wendland and other board colleagues.
As several participants in the F.A.S. described, the deputy party leader Sylvia Winkelmann-Witkowsky then demanded at the BSW meeting that a decision be made on how the party wants to deal with former AfD members. The applicant wanted a demarcation, for example through fixed waiting periods. The two chairmen are said to have put the motion on the back burner and ultimately never put it on the agenda.
“I don’t see a problem with that,” says BSW state director Schulze. He hadn't been in politics long and didn't know every face, and he didn't even know Farle's back then. But even if he had recognized him, says Schulze, he would have seen no reason to intervene. Farle was no longer an AfD member at that point and his contribution would not have violated any applicable law.
Schulze's camp also points out that the renegades are not in the best position to accuse others of being close to the AfD. When Winkelmann-Witkowsky applied for a place on the BSW list for the 2025 federal election, she called in her speech for immigrants who had committed criminal offenses to be consistently deported, along with their families.
The crucial dividing line apparently remained the question of whether, in case of doubt, the AfD should be given a perspective of power or whether it would be better to take part in an alliance against the party, as the BSW did in Thuringia or Brandenburg, against Wagenknecht's wishes. Regarding the prospect that an AfD man could become prime minister through support of the BSW, former managing director Wendland says: “That goes against the founding consensus: We wanted to be an alternative to the alternative and not the little sister of the AfD.”
Schulze, on the other hand, says that the breakaways wanted to take “a completely different path” than the vast majority of members in Saxony-Anhalt. As evidence of this, one could use the special party conference that was convened in Burg at the end of last year. The delegates there supported the line of the party leaders and elected Wendland, Winkelmann-Witkowsky and a colleague from the board; two other officials avoided being voted out by resigning.
However, there is an accusation that the rebellious people were fought using unfair means - and that leads back to Sahra Wagenknecht. It was a time when the party leadership was meticulous about who was allowed to join the alliance and who was not. Shortly before the special party conference, a whole wave of new members were accepted in Saxony-Anhalt, preferably in the district associations that were loyal to the party leadership. The delegate key for the party conference was then calculated, which, according to the renegades, manipulated the true balance of power. Katja Wendland says: “Nobody can tell me that this wasn’t controlled from above.” Thomas Schulze, on the other hand, refers to rulings by the Federal Arbitration Court and says: “These are baseless and long-refuted allegations.”
However, the accusations fit into the picture that many critics paint of Wagenknecht: authoritarian and unforgiving. They also see the fact that the state parliament candidates had to sign declarations of commitment before the election in order to commit themselves to adhering to the party line - given by Wagenknecht - as evidence of how despotically the party founder also governs in Magdeburg.
Wagenknecht rejects this. “It has nothing to do with authoritarianism if you want to ensure that the candidates keep their promises after the election.” In Thuringia, some BSW MPs said goodbye to their party positions on the day of the election, which disappointed many BSW voters and drove them to the AfD. In Brandenburg, too, the coalition now governs with resigned BSW MPs who the voters would not have elected. “This is blatant voter fraud.”
In Magdeburg, Wagenknecht's people are now starting to form the upcoming government in the spirit of the party founder. For the time being, the BSW is sticking to the proposal to appoint a non-partisan Prime Minister and a government of experts, each of which must seek a majority in the state parliament for their projects. However, the BSW also knows that this is a rather unlikely scenario.
The SPD and the Greens have signaled that they want to talk about the idea. However, both parties seem to see it as an opportunity to forge an anti-AfD coalition, which is not the BSW's intention. It is also doubtful that the other parties will agree with Wagenknecht's definition of “non-partisan”. According to this, a suitable candidate would have to “work with all the backbone for peace and a different energy policy, for a reform of public broadcasting, for freedom of expression” and also for all the other demands that the BSW made in the election campaign. In other words: The “non-partisan candidate” should represent the pure BSW doctrine.
The 44 percent AfD, on the other hand, does not give the impression that it wants to sacrifice its popular top candidate, even if Wagenknecht believes that Siegmund wanted to chicken out: “If you look at how he has used tactics in the last few days, then you have to get the impression that he doesn't actually want to become Prime Minister.”
In the end, what matters is what happens when Ulrich Siegmund stands for election in the state parliament. The third round of voting is likely to be decisive when a candidate no longer needs the majority of the state parliament, but only the majority of the votes cast. The AfD has 39 seats, the CDU, SPD, Greens and Left also have 39 seats together. Both the CDU and BSW rule out that Siegmund will get votes from them - but both easily believe the other party can do so.
If there are no dissenters who vote for Siegmund and if the BSW sticks to abstaining in the third round of voting, then two scenarios are conceivable. In the first, at least one member from the ranks of the CDU, SPD, Greens and Left abstained. Then Siegmund will be Prime Minister without a parliamentary majority, and the BSW will be ready to pass laws together with the AfD.
In the second scenario, the CDU, SPD, Greens and Left vote as one against Siegmund or for another candidate. Then there is a stalemate and the government of Prime Minister Sven Schulze remains in office without a majority of its own. In this case, too, the BSW is planning to work together with the AfD. For example, Sven Schulze could be forced to campaign for an end to the Russia sanctions in the Federal Council - and slowly wear down the CDU.
Soon there will be talk about what other mean things might be conceivable. The BSW was the only party to accept the AfD's invitation to talk. There should be agreement on some points quickly: Both parties want to work towards reconciliation with Russia, ending support for Ukraine and quickly allowing cheap Russian gas to flow to Germany again; It would also be possible to agree on tougher action against asylum seekers and an end to the expansion of wind energy.
The BSW does not want to make any compromises when it comes to education. However, the two parties are far apart on other points, such as education policy. The BSW does not believe in the AfD's idea of abolishing compulsory schooling and, unlike Siegmund's party, advocates for longer periods of shared learning. According to state boss Schulze, there is no willingness to compromise. Wagenknecht, on the other hand, finds some points in the AfD election program “so authoritarian that we would not support them under any circumstances,” such as reporting portals for teachers or the demand to impose up to three years in prison if the “traditional family image” is publicly mocked.
Even if many of the BSW base in Saxony-Anhalt reject the Germanic and ethnic nature of the right-wing extremist AfD: they are delighted at the prospect of driving the “old parties” in the state parliament together with the AfD and thus also harassing the federal government and the chancellor. That was always Wagenknecht's actual goal anyway.
But it could also turn out that she has miscalculated her strategy in Saxony-Anhalt. Your promise not to take part in any government and not to be the majority voter for anyone could quickly turn out to be a waste of time.
