Leading figures in Germany’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have demanded a ban on co-operating with the new Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), calling it “the long arm of the Kremlin”.
The BSW, which is less than a year old, had its first election outings in Saxony and Thuringia on Sunday where it scored 11.8 and 15.8 per cent respectively.
Its strong showing has made it a potential kingmaker in both states to CDU-led coalitions. In both states CDU leaders have ruled out negotiating with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which finished in first place on Thuringia and in second place in Saxony.
Adding to complications in coalition talks is a blanket ban on co-operating with the post-communist Left Party, agreed by the CDU in 2018.
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Given the BSW is a breakaway of the Left, and most leading BSW politicians were former Left MPs, critical CDU politicians see the newer alliance as an equally unacceptable partner.
Speaking for 40 signatories of an open letter, CDU MP Frank Sarfeld told Berlin’s Tagesspiegel daily that “Wagenknecht contradicts everything that the CDU has stood for since the founding of the federal republic: a united Europe, membership in Nato.”
Senior CDU politician Roderich Kiesewetter, the party’s foreign policy spokesman, fears the BSW will “undermine the democratic centre, including the CDU, and undermine our basic values, which is why co-operation should be ruled out”.
Some CDU figures have flagged the BSW’s proximity to the “authoritarian regime” in Moscow while others warn the “CDU is heading for an abyss if we allow ourselves to be hitched to Sahra Wagenknecht’s cart”.
The warning from mostly western German CDU politicians has created a dilemma for CDU federal leader Friedrich Merz.
No fan of Ms Wagenknecht, Mr Merz already ruled out co-operating with her “cadre alliance” last June. After appeals from eastern CDU leaders, however, he shifted and insisted the ban only applied at federal level, with “other decisions to be made at state level”.
That has opened the door to Mario Voigt, second-placed CDU leader in Thuringia, who has promised to hold exploratory talks “with a cool head” in the coming days with the BSW.
He is one of a group of eastern CDU politicians who have called for more pragmatism in the party towards the BSW and Left Party, recognising its largely conservative voter base. Refusing to do that, according to one eastern CDU politician, risks sending the party into a coalition “dead end” in both states.
That echoes warnings from the far-right AfD.
Sidelined from talks because of a so-called CDU “firewall” on coalition talks, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel warned “the CDU is heading into a strategic dead end when they can only find a governing majority with leftist and Green parties”.
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