"Sad decline" - Wagenknecht sharply criticizes Linken-Spitzen

Left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht has sharply attacked the top of her party. Criticism of a rally organized by Wagenknecht and publicist Alice Schwarzer against arms deliveries to Ukraine bears witness to "the sad decline of the former peace party," Wagenknecht told the Tagesspiegel. The differences between her and the Left Board are "so great now that the idea of ​​​​how it should come together again overwhelms my imagination".

Wagenknecht was sometimes heavily criticized inside and outside the Left Party for the “Manifesto for Peace” written with Schwarzer and the associated call for an anti-arms delivery demonstration. In the manifesto, the left-wing leadership missed a sufficient distancing from Russia and a demarcation from right-wing forces.

Wagenknecht told the "Tagesspiegel": "The fact that the party executive of the Left has not only not supported the largest peace rally in Germany for many years, but also took part in defaming it and preventing people from participating, testifies to the sad decline of the former peace party .”

The behavior of the party executive strengthened her impression that "at least the majority in this body no longer has anything to do with the founding consensus of the left," said Wagenknecht.

The demonstration against arms deliveries was "a prelude" to "giving a voice to half of the population who want more diplomacy instead of tank deliveries," Wagenknecht said. "We will advise on further steps."

The day before, the left-wing deputy leader Katina Schubert had reacted coolly to the announcement by the members of the Bundestag that she would no longer run for the left. "She hasn't done politics for the left for a long time," said Schubert. “She has been working on her own account for a long time. Her business model is anti-Party agitation, her whole book is based on it. I'll put it this way: Travelers shouldn't be held up."

Wagenknecht has not played a role in the "programmatic development" of the left for a long time. "But their business model is to defame and badmouth people from the sidelines," said Schubert. "In this respect: A clarification might make some things easier."

Wagenknecht has been a member of the Bundestag for the Left Party since 2009 and was co-chairman of the parliamentary group for a number of years. In 2021 she was the top candidate for the Left Party in North Rhine-Westphalia and was again given a seat in the state parliament. On Friday, however, she announced that she no longer wanted to run for the left: The "Rheinpfalz" said the 53-year-old: "I exclude another candidacy for the left." She wanted to either withdraw from politics after the end of the legislative period and work as a publicist and author, "or something new will come up politically".