The Left Party has nominated Carola Rackete, a radical left-liberal activist and captain of the NGO migrant taxi Sea Watch, as the number two candidate for the party’s EU election list, a clear and unmistakable sign that the party has exchanged its formerly held working-class positions for bourgeoisie, green-globalist ones.
The Left Party’s decision to nominate the Antifa activist for the top position comes after she, while serving as the captain of the Sea Watch 3 migrant taxi boat in 2019, was arrested for ramming several Guardia di Finanza patrol vessels as she attempted to reach the port of Lampedusa, Italy, with several dozen illegal migrants, despite having been repeatedly denied access by the authorities.
At the time, while many on the so-called European Left had lauded Rackete’s actions, Sahra Wagenknecht—still one of Germany’s Left Party’s foremost leaders—took a different position and didn’t hesitate to sharply criticize her for pursuing a course of “open borders for all.”
At a press conference on Monday, July 17th, Left Party chairwoman Janine Wissler announced Rackete’s nomination for the party’s EU list, saying: “We are very happy that, in Carola Rackete and Gerhard Trabert, we have succeeded in winning over two well-known and highly committed non-party candidates to run for the Left Party.”
Wissler explained the reasoning behind Rackete’s nomination, saying she was a “well-known climate and environmental activist for the climate justice movement and for the combination of climate and class politics.”
Rackete, for her part, has linked her candidacy to what she believes to be the detrimental effects on the climate caused by the capitalist economy.
“The climate crisis is thoroughly the result of capitalist mismanagement and colonial exploitation. The ecological crises arise from the ruthless exploitation of our nature for profit,” Rackete, a member of the extremist Extinction Rebellion group, said at the press conference.
“The socio-ecological disaster we live in won’t resolve itself if we don’t go to Parliament, and it won’t resolve itself without a stable left-wing party,” Rackete concluded.
When asked about Sahra Wagenknect, who would like to return the party back to its traditional pro-worker roots, Rackete said: “This dispute over the direction of the left has long since been decided. The divorce papers have been submitted, but they still live in the same house.” She added that with her and others’ candidacies, the leadership of the party is sending a “clear signal” that the Left Party wants to “open up more to social movements.”
Undoubtedly, time will tell whether the Left Party’s left-liberal shift will end up paying electoral dividends or whether it will have the opposite effect and precipitate the long-anticipated split within the party.
There has long been chatter that Sahra Wagenknecht is gearing up to form her own party in the near future. In a recent interview with Südwest-Presse, Wagenknecht didn’t hesitate to fuel the speculation. “I would be happy if all the voters who currently no longer feel really represented by any party were soon given a serious political offer again,” she told the newspaper.
According to a report from N-TV, dozens of elected officials in the Left Party have already agreed to join Wagenknecht in the new party, including ex-Federal chairman of the party Klaus Ernst.
“If a new left-wing party is created with Sahra Wagenknecht, many members, and elected representatives will certainly join her,” Ernst told the Münchner Abendzeitung, adding: “I can well imagine joining such a party.”
