A new name and new leadership, the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) made several major decisions at its federal party conference in Magdeburg. BSW founder Sahra Wagenknecht stepped down as party leader, and delegates elected EU lawmaker Fabio de Masi as her successor on Saturday with 93.3 percent of the vote. “I know that I am stepping into very big shoes,” de Masi said after his election. The 45-year-old will now form a dual leadership with Amira Mohamed Ali, who was confirmed as co-chair with 82.6 percent.
The BSW will also no longer carry the name of its founder. Instead, it will be called Bündnis Soziale Gerechtigkeit und Wirtschaftliche Vernunft (Alliance for Social Justice and Economic Reason). Around 660 delegates approved a corresponding proposal by the party executive; two alternative names failed to gain a majority. The new name is scheduled to take effect in October of next year, following the state elections slated for 2026. Next year, elections will be held in several regions including Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and Berlin. The party plans to run in these elections under its current, better-known name.
Wagenknecht plans to focus on sharpening the BSW’s policy profile as chair of a new values commission. She will continue to hold a seat on the party executive in her new role. “No, I am not withdrawing,” she told delegates to loud applause. “They will have to reckon with me for a long time to come in German politics.”
The BSW currently holds seats in the European Parliament, several state parliaments, and two state governments. However, it narrowly failed to enter the Bundestag in February: with 4.981 percent of the second votes, it missed the five-percent threshold by only 9,529 votes. Since then, public visibility has continued to decline, and national polls now place the party at just three to four percent.
“We are in the most difficult phase of our party’s history so far,” Wagenknecht said in her speech. She hopes the party conference will signal “a new beginning.” Alongside the leadership changes, a faster membership recruitment process is expected to help achieve this. Until now, the BSW had been highly restrictive in accepting new members. This created “the impression of a closed-off club,” Wagenknecht said. The party currently has around 11,200 members.
Delegates devoted significant attention to criticism of the conservative-Social Democratic governing coalition and to renewed calls for a recount of votes from the federal election. On Thursday, the BSW suffered a setback when the Bundestag’s electoral review committee rejected its request for a recount. Mohamed Ali condemned the decision in her party conference speech: “Our opponents are doing everything they can to bring us down,” she said.
The ruling shows “how afraid political Berlin is of us,” she added. The co-chair accused the committee of wanting to prevent members of parliament from losing their seats and the governing coalition from losing its majority “at all costs.” The BSW now intends to challenge the decision at the Federal Constitutional Court. “We owe it to our voters to take this all the way, even in Karlsruhe,” Wagenknecht emphasized.
The Bundestag plenary still has to vote on the committee’s recommendation, a decision scheduled for December 18. Only after that vote can the BSW file its lawsuit. Delegates also overwhelmingly approved the party’s main policy motion, with only two votes against and six abstentions. The document criticizes the federal government’s “insane rearmament” plans and its proposals for compulsory military service. It also calls for an end to military support for Ukraine and for Germany to resume importing gas from Russia.
Mohamed Ali reiterated this position in her speech: “Of course we have to buy our energy wherever it is cheapest, and that is Russia.” She added that the United States also purchases raw materials from Russia. “Enough of these double standards,” she told the delegates.
The motion includes additional demands such as reversing the planned phaseout of combustion engines, scrapping the CO₂ price, and introducing a nationwide rent cap. For 2026, the party aims to be represented “in all East German state parliaments at a minimum.”
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