I do not count how many times, certainly more than once, I have warned in these columns in Lider about how undemocratic Eastern regimes successfully infiltrate the European (and generally Western) political system, destroying and conquering it. While the primary ideological battles in Western politics are among themselves. And how necessary it would be for political parties in Western democracies, including in the European Parliament and the division of functions in the European Commission, to start forming coalitions based on their geopolitical orientations – whether they are for the West or for the East. But, I admit, I did not expect the challenge to arise so quickly.
Unpleasant developments on the German scene
The challenge is called Sahra Wagenknecht and BSW – that is, the Coalition of Sahra Wagenknecht. BSW is actually a rebranded and modernized ultra-left German party Die Linke. And Die Linke is ideologically and largely personally a successor of the Communist Party of the former East Germany (DDR), led by Sahra’s 26 years older husband and political mentor Oskar Lafontaine. A family business, one might say.
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In addition, Sahra has all the predispositions to be a leader of the modern pro-Eastern left: an Iranian father, a mother who was an influential official in the DDR (overseeing the distribution of artworks), she is a consistent follower of the DDR’s ideological-political youth, a neo-Marxist in the scientific sphere, an ultra-left activist in the political sphere, once under surveillance for suspicion of undermining the constitutional order in united Germany, excellently connected to that political milieu through her husband Lafontaine. And she is also of pleasant appearance, a true populist revolutionary of the new age. She speaks what voters saturated with impersonal and often unnatural mainstream want to hear. She opposes illegal migrations. But she loves Putin, cannot stand Zelensky, hates NATO, despises capitalism, and promises a welfare state as soon as those Western shackles are lifted…
And her BSW, according to pre-election polls, is the new star of the state elections taking place on Sunday in Saxony and Thuringia (both are former DDR states). But that’s not all: Sahra has announced that a coalition with the ultra-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is not foreign to her, in areas where they agree! And those are anti-migrant policies, anti-NATO stances, and pro-Putin policies. And the AfD, a party that emerged as a resistance to Angela Merkel’s ‘central’ policy, which the political center sometimes pushed towards the extreme right for good reason, but many times only for its own interests, has largely become that. What the domestic political mainstream excluded, Eastern geopolitical concepts included in their projects. And now we find ourselves in a situation where, if the pre-election polls prove accurate, in two important German states, Saxony and Thuringia, Sahra’s BSW could either take power in coalition with the AfD (which is the leading party in Thuringia, and in Saxony is just one percent behind the CDU) or block the takeover of power. In both cases, it would be (or will it be?!) a very unpleasant development on the German political scene: that two distinctly pro-Russian and anti-Western parties, one from the right, the other from the left, decide on the formation of a state government in Germany. And these state elections are just a training ground for the German parliamentary elections next autumn, if Scholz’s government lasts until then. And that is why Sahra Wagenknecht has become European news in the last week.
