Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht
Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht – Vernunft und Gerechtigkeit (BSW, German pronunciation: [beː.ɛsˈveː]); English: Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – Reason and Justice or Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht – Reason and Justice) is a German political party founded on 8 January 2024. The party was preceded by the establishment of a registered association, created on 26 September 2023 and primarily made up of former members of the German political party The Left (German: Die Linke), for the purposes of preparing the founding of the new political party. Plans for the new party were presented at a federal press conference on 23 October 2023 by Bundestag members Sahra Wagenknecht, Amira Mohamed Ali, and Christian Leye, former managing director of The Left in North Rhine-Westphalia Lukas Schön, and entrepreneur Ralph Suikat.
Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht – Vernunft und Gerechtigkeit Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – Reason and Justice | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | BSW |
| Chairperson | Amira Mohamed Ali Sahra Wagenknecht |
| General Secretary | Christian Leye |
| Founders |
|
| Founded | 8 January 2024 |
| Split from | The Left |
| Headquarters | Krausenstr. 9-10 10117 Berlin |
| Membership (2024) | 450 |
| Ideology |
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| Political position | Left-wing[A] |
| Colours | Purple-to-orange gradient |
| Bundestag | 10 / 736 |
| Bundesrat | 0 / 69 |
| State Parliaments | 3 / 1,898 |
| European Parliament | 0 / 96 |
| Heads of State Governments | 0 / 16 |
| Website | |
| bsw-vg | |
^ A: BSW has been variously described as left-wing, far-left, and left-conservative; the latter label is due to its more right-wing stance on socio-cultural issues. | |
Amira Mohamed Ali announced that she, along with Wagenknecht, Leye, and seven other members of the Bundestag faction, would leave The Left to form part of the newly-founded BSW; they would maintain their membership in The Left's parliamentary group (Fraktion) and retain parliamentary privileges, but the faction was dissolved by The Left on 6 December 2023.
The main goal of the association is to build a structure for a new party led by Wagenknecht. The association is sceptical of both green politics and support for Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian War. According to various polls, between 12 and 20 percent (with as high as 32% in eastern Germany) of Germans said they would consider voting for BSW.