Possible election challenge: The BSW will not give up so easily

The celebratory mood in the ranks of the BSW gave way to frustration and accusations within a few hours. While the projections on election night had initially predicted that the alliance around Sahra Wagenknecht would enter the Bundestag, late at night the opposite news came from the Federal Election Commissioner: the young party's preliminary result was 4.972 percent - it could hardly have been any closer to the five percent hurdle in its first federal election . Only a good 13,000 second votes would have made the difference. However, the party leaders do not look to themselves for the reason for the defeat.

On the morning after the election, BSW founder Sahra Wagenknecht did not want to accept the result at the federal press conference. The poor poll ratings of the BSW since last autumn "cannot be explained without the role of the media". She had never experienced such a negative campaign, said the party leader. In addition, Wagenknecht accused polling institutes such as Forsa of having taken targeted action against the alliance in the run-up to the election.

Shortly before the election, the institute had predicted that the BSW would only receive three percent of all second votes, while other pollsters saw the party close to the five percent hurdle. Wagenknecht does not want to explain such a deviation with the usual margin of error. Forsa, on the other hand, states online that errors of plus or minus three percentage points are to be expected in a survey of 1,000 people. But Wagenknecht insists on her blame: "Grading a party like that 48 hours before the election does have an effect on voting behavior." It is possible that some voters did not vote for the BSW out of fear. This is difficult to reconcile with a "free and fair election," explained the party leader, and raised the accusation of manipulation.

The party will now examine whether it is possible to prove such influence. The BSW is also planning to take legal action elsewhere, even considering challenging the election. In order to obtain the votes needed to enter the Bundestag, the BSW is hoping for the votes of many Germans living abroad who were unable to take part in the election. A good 210,000 of them had registered in the electoral register in order to cast their vote by post. However, there were apparently several problems with this, and some of those affected reported that they never received their voting documents .

This raises the question of the "legal validity of the election result," said Wagenknecht. The BSW will consult lawyers. It is not yet known how many Germans abroad were unable to take part in the election despite registering. But the party is also still looking for loopholes at home to get some of the urgently needed votes. "There may have been a mix-up in the counting of votes in individual polling stations," said party leader Amira Mohamed Ali. A similar case with a few votes being counted incorrectly is known from Aachen.

On Monday morning, the two party leaders left unanswered whether the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance would draw personnel consequences from the narrow election result. Wagenknecht herself had announced in advance that she might also base her own political future on the election result. Now the decision is on hold for the time being: "We will now discuss how we will position ourselves for the future," said the party leader. Following the election, given the previously strict admission requirements in the BSW, the main focus will be on gaining new members and better positioning the regional associations. When asked whether Wagenknecht was still interested in continuing to support the BSW, the party founder replied at the federal press conference: "Politics is not always a question of desire."