Ten members of the BSW party officially announced their resignation on Friday, though they initially plan to remain members of the parliamentary group. The group, led by Thuringian Finance Minister Katja Wolf and parliamentary group leader Sigrid Hupach, announced the move. The BSW parliamentary group will initially continue with twelve members, with discussions scheduled for next week regarding the future of the group.
In related changes, the BSW state chairman, Gernot Süßmuth, also stepped down, stating that the BSW could no longer be saved. State chairwoman Katja Wolf announced that the state executive board would also be resigning, noting that she had painfully realized in recent days that “no common path was possible.”
Simultaneously, group leader Hupach stated that despite their departure from the party, the deputies wish to continue supporting the state government. “We continue to stand for the coalition,” she emphasized, though she did not detail how the collaboration would function going forward. Given previous defections, the coalition with the CDU and SPD now represents only a slight minority in parliament, casting doubt on the reliability of the two BSW members who remain in the state party.
Previously, four other members had resigned. Matthias Herzog announced his party resignation on Monday but intends to remain in the parliamentary group as an independent deputy. Stefan Wogawa, along with Matthias Herzog and Dirk Hoffmeister, officially left both the party and the parliamentary group on Wednesday. These three former BSW politicians plan to form a parliamentary group with their newly founded party, “Deine Stimme zählt” (Your Voice Counts).
The backdrop to this political turmoil is a conflict between the federal BSW party and the BSW in Thuringia. The federal party had pressured its colleagues in Thuringia to abandon the coalition after State Premier Mario Voigt (CDU) came under scrutiny over the affair surrounding his doctoral thesis.
