Last weekend's party conference in Bonn, western Germany, was extra special for the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW): The party will take part in its first federal election in February, and this was its chance to present its manifesto.

Founded in January 2024, the BSW made it through the dress rehearsal with flying colors: In September's elections in the eastern German states of Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia, the BSW took 12%-16% of the vote, eclipsing the socialist Left party from which it drew many of its state and federal parliamentarians.

Despite this, Wagenknecht is worried that the party bearing her name will fail to reach the 5% threshold in the early Bundestag elections. This is because only around 10 million of Germany's 59 million eligible voters live in the east, less than one-fifth of the electorate. In the west, support for the BSW is significantly lower.

This was already evident in the European elections in June, when the BSW received 6.2% of the German vote. The regional differences were huge: In eastern states, support ranged from roughly 13% to 16%, but in western states the BSW averaged well below 5%. Only in the small state of Saarland (1 million inhabitants) and in the city-state of Bremen (580,000 inhabitants) did it surpass this threshold.

The BSW is looking at similar figures in the upcoming........

© Deutsche Welle