Sahra Wagenknecht steps down as BSW leader after election setback

Brussels – After the failure in the last general elections and numerous internal disagreements within the movement, Sahra Wagenknecht is stepping down as leader of the red-brown BSW party she founded in Germany. She made the announcement yesterday (November 10) at a press conference in Berlin.

Current co-chair Amira Mohamed Ali and MEP Fabio De Masi will now lead the party, which will partially change its name: it will continue to use the acronym BSW, which will no longer refer to the founder’s name but to the “Alliance for Social Justice and Economic Reason.”

In the last German elections, the BSW failed to pass the 5 percent threshold by only 9,000 votes and was therefore excluded from the distribution of seats in the Bundestag (a recount request is pending in the courts). The party was founded in January 2024 following a split from the Linke, which Wagenknecht’s partner, Oskar Lafontaine, former SPD chairman, had helped to found in 2007 but later distanced himself from.