Ten more BSW MPs in Thuringia have left the party. These include Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Katja Wolf, Digital Minister Steffen Schütz and Environment Minister Tilo Kummer. According to their chairwoman Sigrid Hupach, the MPs want to stay in the group for the time being. A regular meeting will be held next week and a decision will be made about whether to leave the group.
The previous state chairwoman Wolf justified the MPs' decision on Friday with differences with the federal leadership in Berlin. Resigning is not easy, she said at a short-term press conference in Erfurt. But the past few days have made it clear that there can no longer be a common path with the federal party. “We are therefore leaving the BSW today and are consistently choosing Thuringia.”
You were elected to solve problems in the country, Wolf continued, and not for “endless self-employment,” for “constant defensive battles” or “enduring flirtations with right-wing radicals.” Wolf was still convinced of the BSW's founding consensus. However, according to the previous state chairwoman, it must be noted that the federal party has moved further and further away from this consensus.
Wolf emphasized that he would continue to support the alliance with the SPD and CDU. In a subsequent press conference with Prime Minister Mario Voigt (CDU) and Deputy Prime Minister Georg Maier (SPD), she said that they wanted to continue working together undisturbed in the coalition. Leaving the party is “a clear commitment to the government contract”.
Voigt expressed his respect to the BSW representatives. “Today is a day of clarity,” said the Prime Minister. And further: “We trust each other.” Voigt emphasized the government's continuity and ability to work. “This country is run well, calmly and, above all, sensibly.”
Maier, on the other hand, was more reserved. The resignations in the BSW represented a challenge for the coalition; they now had to reorganize themselves. He also referred to his position as SPD state chairman: “In this role, I would like to say that of course we first have to discuss the situation that has now arisen in our committees.” He couldn't anticipate that.
State chairwoman Wolf initially did not want to comment on the founding of a new party. “It is of course also a process that we will discuss within the state executive board,” said Wolf. At the same time as the MPs, the executive state executive board is also leaving the party, and according to state manager Steffi Eschrich, “almost the entire state executive board” is also resigning.
In mid-August, the federal leadership asked the regional association to leave the government coalition led by Prime Minister Mario Voigt (CDU). The majority of the group decided against it. At the same time, the regional association had announced a special party conference to decide whether to remain or withdraw from the coalition. It has now been cancelled. “The special party conference had a task that it no longer has,” said Wolf on Friday.
The party founder Sahra Wagenknecht accused the Thuringian MPs of being calculated. “It is obvious that the majority of the parliamentary group is now leaving the party because they know that they would no longer have received support for their course at the planned special party conference,” Wagenknecht told the German Press Agency. The timing was deliberately chosen “in order to do maximum damage to the party to which they owe their mandates and ministerial positions before the election in Saxony-Anhalt,” she added.
On Wednesday, three MPs announced that they were leaving both the party and the parliamentary group out of dissatisfaction with the federal leadership. They declared that they had founded their own party called “Your Vote Counts”. The BSW parliamentary group was reduced from 15 to twelve members.
The Thuringian government alliance has not yet had its own majority in the state parliament - there was a stalemate of 44 out of 88 seats with the opposition from the AfD and the Left. The majority of the coalition was usually organized through compromises with the Left faction.
If the ten MPs who have now announced their departure from the party also leave the parliamentary group next week, only MPs Anke Wirsing and Sven Küntzel will remain, who are considered to be supporters of the federal party's course. However, their parliamentary group status could then no longer be maintained, as at least five MPs are needed for this.
