A new radical left party calls for talks with Moscow

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, a result of the split from Die Linke Party, defends relations with Russia. This group, moreover, wants to defend the working classes and calls for reducing the number of migrants.

A grand opening for the new German radical left populist party. During the party’s first congress on Saturday January 27 in Berlin (Germany), its co-president, Sahra Wagenknecht, called on her country to negotiate with Moscow to end the war in Ukraine.

She also urged Germany to halt its arms deliveries to Kiev, in front of some 450 founding members of the party gathered at the Kosmos, a former GDR cinema located on Karl-Marx Avenue in Berlin. “We are delivering weapons to Ukraine for a victory in which, alas, even the Ukrainian generals no longer believe. (…) This war must end through negotiations and very quickly”she asked to applause.

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The party, whose full name is “Alliance Sahara Wagenknecht (BWS) – for reason and justice” was launched on January 8 around the charismatic 54-year-old personality, who was born in Jena, which was still communist Germany. Sahra Wagenknecht left the Radical Left Party (Die Linke) last October with nine other colleagues, sealing a split in the formation, the successor to East Germany’s Communist Party.

Especially popular in Eastern Germany

Sahra Wagenknecht’s movement lends itself to ideas cherished by the far-right, such as reducing the number of migrants or ending arms deliveries to Ukraine. He also defends ties with Moscow for offering cheap energy supplies to Germany.

There are two electoral opportunities for the new party this year: the European vote on June 9 and the three eastern regions’ polls in September. Success is expected for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party during these two elections. Sahara Wagenknecht, who remained a communist after the fall of the Berlin Wall, shares her distrust of the West with many East Germans.

The Sahara WagonConnect is particularly popular in the former GDR. In her speech, she clearly addressed voters who may be sensitive to certain ideas espoused by the AfD, which is particularly popular in the east. And to list: “When we advocate peace, we are labeled extreme right, when we defend farms and farmers, we are extreme right, (…) when we call for limits on immigration and when we parallel Islamic As far as societies are concerned, we are very right.”.