Current:Home > NewsGermany’s opposition Left Party to dissolve caucus after prominent member launches rival venture-Angel Dreamer Wealth Society D1 Reviews & Insights
Germany’s opposition Left Party to dissolve caucus after prominent member launches rival venture
View Date:2024-12-24 00:13:36
BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s opposition Left Party said Tuesday it will dissolve its parliamentary caucus next month after prominent party member Sahra Wagenknecht broke away to found a new party with a more nationalist, migration-skeptic agenda.
The Left Party emerged in 2005, bringing together ex-communists from eastern Germany with leftists from the west disgruntled by welfare-state cuts. It was a potent opposition force in its early years, but was later plagued by deep internal divisions.
In Germany’s 2021 election, it won only 4.9% of the vote and came close to losing almost all its seats in parliament. Its fortunes haven’t improved since, despite the unpopularity of center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government.
Wagenknecht and nine other lawmakers quit the Left Party last month. They plan to formally launch a new party in January.
Wagenknecht criticizes “unregulated immigration” and some environmentalists’ plans to combat climate change, positions that contrast with those of the Left Party leadership. She also opposes current sanctions against Russia. It’s a combination that some observers think could take votes away from the far-right Alternative for Germany, which has surged to around 20% in national polls.
Wagenknecht and her followers quit the party but didn’t immediately leave its caucus. They rejected calls to give up their seats so that Left Party loyalists could take their place.
Party leaders conceded that there was no chance of salvaging the caucus, which requires a minimum 37 members. It will be dissolved on Dec. 6, lawmakers said after they met Tuesday.
“Better united with 28 than estranged with 38” lawmakers, caucus leader Dietmar Bartsch said. He stressed that it was not the end of the party, which has one state governor and is part of two other regional administrations, and said that “this is an opportunity for a new beginning ... (but) permanent disputes must end.”
Bartsch hopes for a new Left Party “group” that would have reduced funding and rights, but seats on committees and more time to speak than independents. The caucus received about 11.5 million euros ($12.3 million) in state funding last year and spent 9.3 million euros on personnel costs.
Dissolving the caucus means that its 108 staff will have to be dismissed.
veryGood! (127)
Related
- Skiing legend Lindsey Vonn ends retirement, plans to return to competition
- Kim Kardashian's Son Psalm West Celebrates 4th Birthday at Fire Truck-Themed Party
- Wildfire smoke impacting flights at Northeast airports
- Court Sides with Arctic Seals Losing Their Sea Ice Habitat to Climate Change
- Martin Scorsese on the saints, faith in filmmaking and what his next movie might be
- New Yorkers hunker down indoors as Canadian wildfire smoke smothers city
- North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum launches 2024 run for president
- Here's What Prince Harry Did After His Dad King Charles III's Coronation
- Stop What You're Doing—Moo Deng Just Dropped Her First Single
- 8 Answers to the Judge’s Climate Change Questions in Cities vs. Fossil Fuels Case
Ranking
- Teachers in 3 Massachusetts communities continue strike over pay, paid parental leave
- Planned Parenthood mobile clinic will take abortion to red-state borders
- Climber celebrating 80th birthday found dead on Mount Rainier
- Amanda Gorman addresses book bans in 1st interview since poem was restricted in a Florida school
- Arizona Supreme Court declines emergency request to extend ballot ‘curing’ deadline
- Here's What Prince Harry Did After His Dad King Charles III's Coronation
- How Dannielynn Birkhead Honored Mom Anna Nicole Smith With 2023 Kentucky Derby Style
- It's a bleak 'Day of the Girl' because of the pandemic. But no one's giving up hope
Recommendation
-
LSU student arrested over threats to governor who wanted a tiger at college football games
-
Miami's Little Haiti joins global effort to end cervical cancer
-
This MacArthur 'genius' grantee says she isn't a drug price rebel but she kind of is
-
See it in photos: Smoke from Canadian wildfires engulfs NYC in hazy blanket
-
Oprah Winfrey denies being paid $1M for Kamala Harris rally: 'I was not paid a dime'
-
What's it take to go from mechanic to physician at 51? Patience, an Ohio doctor says
-
East Coast Shatters Temperature Records, Offering Preview to a Warming World
-
What to do during an air quality alert: Expert advice on how to protect yourself from wildfire smoke