Merz to cancel UN trip amid party infighting

The left-wing populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) contingent of lawmakers in Brandenburg continues to shrink. 

Oliver Skopec announced on Tuesday he was quitting the party, becoming the 6th of what was once 15 BSW parliamentarians to do so since November last year. 

The first four left last November. When the former party leader at the state level, Robert Crumbach, quit in January, the state coalition between the BSW and senior partners the Social Democrats lost its majority and fell apart. 

Skopec, a 41-year-old businessman said he wanted to retain his place in the state parliament and operate as an independent, at least at first. 

He linked his decision to quit with the BSW’s character as what he termed a party of protest. “For me personally, that is not enough,” he said. 

Tensions are high in the party as it wrangles with questions like how, or whether, to deal with the far-right AfD — particularly in Saxony-Anhalt after the recent election. 

A senior BSW politician at the federal level, Niels-Olaf Lüders, said it was “regrettable” that Skopec was leaving, “but of course it doesn’t topple us either.”

The party’s chairwoman in Brandenburg, Friederike Benda expressed anything but regret at seeing Skopec go, saying it was “not a loss.”

“Separating the chaff from the wheat will help us,” Benda said, accusing Skopec of using his seat in parliament “as a comfortable, state-financed pillow” to rest on at the taxpayer’s expense. 

In another eastern state, Thurinigia, the BSW group of parliamentarians has dissolved itself altogether and set up a rival group at the state level. 

In Brandenburg, two of the six defectors left for the more centrist Social Democrats (SPD), and four set up a group they call “We for Brandenburg.” 

Skopec did not say he planned to join them, but said “we will surely speak to each other.” 

The BSW surfed a brief wave of popularity fairly soon after its foundation — and enjoyed big state election results in Thuringia and Brandeburg in 2024 as a result. But it has since lost almost all of its momentum and is fighting to survive, in large part because of the relative resurgence of the more traditional socialist Left Party in the run-up to last year’s federal elections.