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Oskar Lafontaine faces calls to resign from his own party. The reason is a joint appearance with Thilo Sarrazin. Members of the left are demanding that the former party leader resign as head of the parliamentary group in the Saarland state parliament. In a statement, the association “Anticapitalist Left” (AKL) writes: “The AKL demands that Oskar Lafontaine immediately resign from all political positions in which he would have to represent left politics.”
The reason given is that Sarrazin is “a nationally recognized racist who has just been expelled from the SPD after a long and tortuous process” and a “radical right-wing icon” that a member of the left should not publicly appreciate. This joint appearance is detrimental to the party.
Lafontaine appeared in Munich on Monday evening along with CSU politician Peter Gauweiler and former Berlin Finance Senator and book author Thilo Sarrazin to discuss Sarrazin’s new book. Sarrazin was expelled from the SPD in July for making racist and Islamophobic statements. His bestseller “Germany Abolished Itself” is one of the most important milestones in the establishment of new rights in Germany.
Lafontaine said at the event, according to a “BR” report, that an unaccompanied refugee child costs around 5,000 euros a month and that he could not explain it to a social retiree. Too much money is being spent on too few people in need.
Lucy Redler, a member of the Executive Committee of the Left Party, told SPIEGEL: “Someone who shares a podium with racists like Sarrazin and plays in the interests of refugees against German retirees cannot hold public office for Die Linke.” With Thies Gleiss, who is also on the party’s executive committee, Redler is one of the most important people in the AKL.
Lafontaine was once at the head of the party and the parliamentary group in the Bundestag; he is currently a left wing official in the Saarland state parliament. In response to AKL’s call for resignation, he told SPIEGEL: “It is unfortunate that it cannot be conveyed to people who see themselves as leftists that it is better to help ten million people than two million. For Bernie Sanders, the ‘anti-capitalist left’ is a friend of capital: ‘What the right wing loves in this country is a policy of open borders. Bring in a lot of people who work for two or three dollars an hour.
“It is not on the left, it is grain for the AfD mill”
Other members of the left also reacted with horror to the joint appearance and criticized them vehemently, but without asking for their resignation or other consequences.
“I think it is out of the question to sit on a podium with Thilo Sarrazin. The escalation in the cost of unaccompanied minor refugees is unfortunate. That is not left, but the AfD mill,” Christine Buchholz told SPIEGEL. Lafontaine was isolated with such positions in the party. Buchholz is a member of the party’s executive committee and a member of the Bundestag.
“Joint appearances with a proven racist like Sarrazin are forbidden for left-wing officials, that is evident,” board member Raúl Zelik told SPIEGEL. And the party’s vice president, Martina Renner, tweeted: “Racist Thilo Sarrazin is going on a promotional tour for his new job, and a leader of a left-wing parliamentary group makes the mascot and supports it with anti-refugee statements. so if you want to destroy the Die Linke party. “
Bundestag MP Niema Movassat also wrote on Twitter: “It really couldn’t be more disgusting. Oskar Lafontaine and the racist Sarrazin show up and say that children who have fled cost too much. Stepping on the poorest and facing them against other poor people is unacceptable. “And Wulff Gallert, vice-speaker of the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament, commented on Twitter:” I always had a very bad feeling at Lafontaine from 2007 at the latest. His appearance with Sarrazin confirms me in hindsight in a way that doesn’t wanted to have.”
