When prominent left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht announced she was founding her own party last year, it was — some said — the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) that had the most cause for concern.
Political analysts have been arguing that the unique position of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) — left-wing on economic issues, but closer to the far-right on issues like immigration and gender diversity — may pose a threat to the AfD. The European election on June 9 will be one of the first big tests of that theory.
At a press conference in Berlin in late April, Wagenknecht explained her own phenomenon in characteristically well-honed, yet simple terms. "It's clear that we have a government that is very unpopular," she told a group of reporters. "The German economy is in a crisis … we've had above-average inflation, and the government parties have dropped very severely. And of course, that has led to the AfD and the far-right of the spectrum being strengthened a lot."
Her decision to split from the Left Party, whose parliamentary group she once led, decimated the socialist party's Bundestag representation and may have destroyed it as a significant political force in the future — 10 of the Left Party's 38 Bundestag members have defected to the BSW.
The reason she felt she had to move, Wagenknecht said, was because the old socialist party was "no longer reaching the people who are dissatisfied, who want a serious alternative."
She also indirectly admitted that she is fishing in the same waters as the AfD. "We believe, and this is also shown in many surveys, that........