Turbulent foundation: Chaos at the BSW Hamburg before the Bundestag election!

Turbulent foundation: Chaos at the BSW Hamburg before the Bundestag election!

Hamburg, Deutschland - On Saturday, December 21, 2024, the founding of the Sahra Wagenknecht Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) in Hamburg came to the foundation of the State Association of Sahra Wagenknecht. Despite strict security measures, the police had to intervene when the tensions between members escalated. Central figures such as the federal chairman Amira Mohamed Ali and Vice Chairman Amid Rabieh were on site, while the new national association was finally successfully founded. Leading heads, including Konstantin Eulenburg and Jochen Brack, were elected chairperson. Brack is also the top candidate for the upcoming citizenship elections on March 2, 2025, which should take place one week after the Bundestag election.

Inner party controversy and competition

The situation was complicated by the simultaneous establishment of another national association by two other BSW members, Norbert Weber and Dejan Lazić. This group had already founded its own association called "Alliance for Reason and Justice" without the consent of the federal board. The federal government sees this foundation as "void". The regulations on membership admission and the internal party democracy in the BSW are discussed violently, which the lawyer Heike Merten rates as a color for the state of the party. If the dispute continues to escalate, the BSW could be at risk of participating in the Bundestag election in Hamburg, as reported by the Fuldaer Zeitung.

The federal board has expressed concerns to the list submitted by Weber and Lazić because it was not properly registered. There is fear that neither of the two could be accepted when submitting two competing state lists for the Bundestag election, which the BSW in Hamburg would rule out from participation. If this happened, it could be difficult for the party to receive the necessary votes for moving into the Bundestag, since current surveys show a result of around five to six percent.

At the same time, Sahra Wagenknecht announced that the party wanted to rename itself after the election, but the abbreviation BSW should be preserved. The further developments in Hamburg remain exciting and offer a lot of space for internal disputes and possible legal disputes.

Junge Welt first reported on the tumulty scenes, while the Fuldaer Zeitung The internal conflicts and the impending danger of a legal dispute.