The end after 18 years: The left-wing parliamentary group disbands

Bundestag - The end after 18 years: The left-wing parliamentary group disbands

This end is accompanied by a mixture of melancholy and relief, defiance and new beginnings. 18 years after it was founded in September 2005, the Left Party parliamentary group in the Bundestag is now history. For the time being, the 38 members of the parliamentary group will be lone wolves. If the majority in the Bundestag goes along, they will soon regroup: 28 left-wingers in a new group. And ten members of the "Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance" in another. In future, they will be rivals. This will not make the political landscape any clearer.

"It's sad and, in view of the shift to the right in all other parties, bad for cohesion in this country," says Jan Korte, previously Parliamentary Secretary, on the end of the Left Party. "At the same time, we have the chance to get a renewed, strong socialist party on track." Former party leader Bernd Riexinger is also hopeful: "Now it's really starting for us." Politics for tenants, employees and pensioners without agonizing disputes: "We have the chance to win back voters' trust with good and reliable policies," says Riexinger.

The "rest of the left" and the others

Both belong to the 28 that the other side now sometimes calls the "residual left". They are the majority, but they seem to have somehow remained since former parliamentary group leader Sahra Wagenknecht filed for divorce in October with a grand gesture. She wants to found her own party in January and is only in double figures in the polls on the basis of this announcement. In contrast, the Insa Institute, commissioned by Bild am Sonntag, only gave the Left Party three percent voter approval. These figures say little for the time being. But the voter confidence Riexinger is hoping for would certainly be favorable for the Left.

For the time being, the "Sahra Wagenknecht alliance" is attracting almost all the attention. "People are looking forward to the new things that are coming," says her fellow campaigner and ex-leftist Alexander Ulrich. "The popularity among the population is also very high." He hints that he is leaving with mixed feelings. "I've been in the Bundestag since 2005, I've been part of the Left Party since the very first second," says Ulrich. "It's been part of my life."

The parliamentary group first existed before the Western party WASG and the SED successor Linkspartei.PDS merged to form the Left Party in 2007. The newly founded party shot to a peak of 11.9 percent in the 2009 federal elections and still had around 9 percent in 2013 and 2017. It then plummeted to 4.9 percent in 2021. In the middle of the election campaign, Wagenknecht also criticized her own comrades in her bestseller "Die Selbstgerechten". In terms of content, this virtually anticipated the split.

What separates the new rivals

"There are overlaps in the social sphere, so a split would certainly not have been necessary," says Wagenknecht supporter Ulrich. Higher pensions, higher taxes for the rich, a higher minimum wage, better education - the newly divorced ex-partners hardly differ in these areas. Both call for peace through diplomacy in Ukraine and reject German arms deliveries. It will be interesting to see whether they pull together on such issues in the Bundestag.

Opinions are particularly divided on the key issues of migration and climate protection. The Left Party wants a generous intake of refugees and a much more ambitious climate target: an economy without additional greenhouse gases from 2035. Wagenknecht, on the other hand, wants to take in fewer refugees. And Germany should continue to burn cheap gas from Russia and drive cars with combustion engines. In the end, nothing came together.

Klaus Ernst, who left the Left Party with Wagenknecht, puts it this way: "I very much regret that it had to come to this, after all I helped found the Left Party. But it has strayed so far from the path of virtue that it really is better this way now." He was "happy to use his position as Chairman of the Energy Committee to bring a bit of common sense to climate policy, including towards our own store". He did not convince the majority of the Left Party. Incidentally, the committee chairmanship is gone with the dissolution of the parliamentary group.

What happens now

The Left Party will cease to exist on December 6 at 00:00 - the parliamentary group decided this in mid-November and notified the Bundestag; no further formal steps are required. All 38 MPs will then initially be "non-attached", i.e. left to their own devices in the Bundestag. The approximately 100 employees will be dismissed. A team of liquidators led by the former parliamentary group manager Thomas Westphal handles everything, from the social plan to the office rent. The former parliamentary group room in the Reichstag building has already been cleared out and the large posters of Lothar Bisky, Clara Zetkin and Heiner Müller have been taken down, according to reports.

The Left Party, led by former parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch, has already declared itself a group and applied for official recognition from Bundestag President Bärbel Bas. A decision in the plenary session will determine what rights the new group has and how much financial support it will receive.

The Bundestag press office has not yet decided when a decision will be made on the Left Party's application. Theoretically, it could be next week, but a date after the New Year is more likely. By then, the Wagenknecht group will probably also be ready to go: it wants to be constituted on December 12 and also apply for group status before Wagenknecht founds her party in January. It is still being decided where both groups will sit in the Bundestag in future. Will the Wagenknecht group have to sit next to the AfD on the right side of the chamber? Bas' people are not yet saying anything about this either.

Then it's on to the 2024 election year with the European elections in June and the state elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg in September. The first test for the Wagenknecht party and the first indication for the Left as to whether the hoped-for comeback is realistic.