The internal dispute between the BSW's national leadership and its state branch in Thuringia over the party's participation in the state government has finally escalated following the resignation of further BSW members. Ten members of the BSW state parliamentary group around state leader Katja Wolf declared their resignation from the party in Erfurt on Friday. How matters will proceed with the state parliamentary group is to be discussed next week. At the same time, Wolf and parliamentary group leader Sigrid Hupach stressed that they and their fellow campaigners are holding on to the governing coalition with the CDU and SPD.
"We continue to feel bound by the coalition agreement," said Wolf, who serves as finance minister in the cabinet of Minister President Mario Voigt (CDU). "We need stability in Thuringia." The past few days had made clear that, given the conduct of the BSW's national leadership, there could no longer be "any shared path" forward.
Wolf accused the party leadership of having made Thuringia "a plaything". "We were not elected for endless self-preoccupation, we were not elected for constant defensive battles, and we were not elected for flirtations with right-wing radicals." What mattered was carrying out a mandate to govern, she stressed.
The BSW's national leadership around party founder Sahra Wagenknecht had recently exerted open pressure on its own state branch and its MPs in order to push them into breaking up the coalition and toppling Voigt. The Thuringian BSW leadership and the BSW state parliamentary group rejected this. A special party conference planned for Sunday on the matter was cancelled because of the current developments, according to Wolf.
Only a few days earlier, three MPs had declared their departure from the BSW parliamentary group and the party, after the conflict between the BSW's national leadership and the Thuringian state branch over participation in government in the Free State had intensified. On Tuesday, the parliamentary group also confirmed that a state parliament member had left the party.
According to Wolf and parliamentary group leader Sigrid Hupach, almost the entire state executive is also leaving the BSW. The parliamentary group, which continues to exist, currently has twelve members, according to Hupach. Further steps are to be discussed at a group meeting next week. Hupach, too, committed herself to the continuation of the coalition.
Voigt has governed since 2024 in a three-way coalition of CDU, BSW and SPD, which does not, however, hold an absolute majority in the state parliament. For decisions that require one, the government therefore works together with the Left Party. Three ministers from the BSW have belonged to the cabinet so far. The AfD forms the largest parliamentary group in the state parliament.
The AfD has been working towards toppling Voigt for some time and recently courted the BSW to that end without success. The BSW's national leadership likewise demands Voigt's departure in favour of a "non-partisan minister president". The party leadership considers the firewall against the AfD to have failed.
Following the departure of several state parliament members in Thuringia, BSW founder Sahra Wagenknecht sees a deliberate manoeuvre designed to damage her party ahead of the election in Saxony-Anhalt. The timing had been chosen to cause the BSW "maximum damage before the election in Saxony-Anhalt", Wagenknecht said on the online service X. "Evidently the aim is to prevent the only consistent peace party from entering the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt."
The ten MPs around Wolf, previously the state leader, justified their resignation above all with the interference of the party leadership around Wagenknecht and its lack of distance from the AfD.
"It is obvious that the majority of the Thuringian parliamentary group is now also leaving the party because they know that they would no longer have had any backing for their course at the planned special party conference," Wagenknecht wrote. The calculation of damaging the party at the election in Saxony-Anhalt would "hopefully not work out", she said. Ultimately it was "a liberating blow" for the party. Voters in Saxony-Anhalt now had "all the more clarity: where it says BSW on the label, BSW is also what is inside".
Ahead of the ballot on Sunday in Saxony-Anhalt, the BSW is seen in polls at around four percent. The party is therefore in danger of missing out on entering the state parliament there for the first time.
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