The Wagenknechts will hold their first party conference this weekend. We have questions and answers about the party and its namesake.

The namesake: Sahra Wagenknecht Photo: Sascha Fromm/Funke Photo Services/imago

Who is the person?

Sahra Wagenknecht needs no introduction: she is a media figure, a popular guest on talk shows and is also present on social media, from TikTok to YouTube. She has barely changed her appearance over the decades. She looked so much like Rosa Luxemburg that the then leader of her party, Lothar Bisky, joked that she just had to limp. Today she seems more like a manager. With her costume, her pearl necklace, her strict kohl over her eyes and her hair always up, she radiates an old-fashioned elegance that seems a little old-fashioned. The Wagenknecht brand is “immediately recognizable as Mickey Mouse or Marilyn Monroe,” wrote the World once. Wagenknecht combines a strict and fragile charm with intelligence and charisma. In person he seems quite distant, but in the tabloid media he also talks about his private life with his partner Oskar Lafontaine: “When I return to the Saarland, my husband will be waiting for me there and will catch me,” he told the newspaper a few days ago. . years ago Great illustration: “Since we lived together, I have been a happy person.” Recently, she has been emphasizing Dr. before his name.

What policy can be expected?

Wagenknecht is a projection surface for different desires; politically he is surprisingly versatile. He used to warm the hearts of left-wing party cadres by romanticizing the GDR and even Stalin and calling for the nationalization of key industries. He later made the ordoliberal Ludwig Erhard his idol, thus winning over conservatives. Since the 2011 financial crisis, she has been considered an economic expert. Today she prefers to fight against the “lifestyle left”, the “woke” and the traffic light coalition, while she seems quite indifferent towards the AfD. When she launches her attacks on “crazy traffic light politics,” unlike AfD leader Alice Weidel, she usually remains cool and controlled, her back always arched. Her polemics do not sound as harsh as those of Friedrich Merz or Hubert Aiwanger, but they are no less sharp. When Wolfgang Kubicki says things like that, you think he's drunk. In Wagenknecht even the greatest nonsense sounds reasonable.

What kind of party is this?

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance is a textbook populist party: tailored to a charismatic leader, organized from the top down and designed as if on a drawing board. This is a first in Germany, apart from the less successful Todenhöfer team of former CDU politician Jürgen Todenhöfer. Successful models can be found abroad, from Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia to Geert Wilder's one-man Freedom Party and Emmanuel Macron's La République en marche. Politically they differ, but they have all proven their worth at the polls. Berlusconi and Macron have risen to the top of their states, and right-wing extremist Geert Wilders is about to become prime minister of the Netherlands. Populists are political entrepreneurs who sense social moods and seize the opportunity to shake up the partisan landscape. This is the trend: Sebastian Kurz in Austria and Donald Trump in the United States have also temporarily supported their parties and united them.

Wagenknecht explicitly wants “to be neither left nor right.” This makes her similar to other populists who point to a supposed center. Her alliance has more similarities to comedian Beppe Grillo's 5-Star Movement, which became Italy's strongest force six years ago. Back then, she gained points with a previously left-wing electorate with her skepticism towards the EU, her criticism of elites and her left-wing social policies. After the election, the 5 Stars formed a coalition with Matteo Salvini's far-right Northern League, and in the European Parliament they worked with British Brexit propagandist Nigel Farage's far-right Ukip party. Wagenknecht rejects coalitions with the AfD, but considers it “not problematic” to vote together on certain occasions.

What's in the program?

Ten days before the party's founding conference, on January 27, a draft program for the European elections was published and was characterized by EU skepticism. The alliance opposes “out-of-touch EU technocrats” and “excessive EU regulation” and “a self-confident Europe of sovereign democracies”; rejects the expansion of the EU to include Ukraine, for example. “Instead of being a pawn in the conflict between the great powers and a vassal of the United States,” Europe must “become an independent player on the world stage,” the preamble says. Migration and asylum policy must change “fundamentally”, says the programme, which is full of slogans such as “parallel societies influenced by Islamism” and “failed integration”. Immigration must be limited and asylum procedures introduced at the external borders of the EU and outside the EU. The moderate demands of the left can only be found in economic and social policy: higher real wages and pensions, affordable rents, fair taxes and less privatization in health and care. This will probably only be approved at the party conference.

Who is the staff?

The party was initially limited to 450 members when it was founded in January; The staff is carefully chosen and so far mainly comes from the circle of former leftists and former SPD members, as well as from the west of the country. Wagenknecht introduces his team in stages, one new addition at a time. With this tactic salami continually feeds the media, which always has something new to report. The alliance wants to radiate economic competence: Baden IT entrepreneur Ralph Suikat was appointed treasurer and economist Shervin Haghsheno from Karlsruhe was appointed general secretary. The new party has so far been weakly positioned in the east; he plans to run in three state elections there in the fall. Katja Wolf, former mayor of Eisenach, recently announced a major defection from the Left Party. Wagenknecht himself only wants to run for the Bundestag in two years. Until then, she will mainly lend her name and her face to her party.

What's in your wallet?

Unlike its former headquarters, the Left Party, which deliberately does not accept corporate donations, Wagenknecht actively solicits donations of all kinds: so far, the party says it has raised $1.4 million in donations, ranging from small amounts to large sums. the main donors. A wealthy East German couple recently donated 1 million euros, the newspaper reported Mirror.

How big is the potential?

In some places, polls already put the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance in the double-digit range: in Brandenburg around 13 percent and in Thuringia 17 percent, although the party does not yet have structures there. In a recent Forsa survey, it only reached 3 percent nationally. That would be enough for the European elections; otherwise not.