Prominent German leftist politician sprayed with a red liquid, likely paint, during campaign event

BERLIN — A prominent German leftist politician was sprayed with a red liquid, likely paint, during a campaign event Thursday in the eastern city of Erfurt, ahead of closely watched state elections on Sunday.

Sara Wagenknecht, founder of the new Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, was only lightly splattered by the liquid but briefly left the stage, according to German news agency dpa.

A man was immediately pushed to the ground by security forces, handcuffed and taken away. Wagenknecht returned to the stage and later wrote on the social media platform X that she was scared but fine.

While no one was injured in Erfurt, the incident comes as political violence in Germany is on the rise. In May, a prominent Berlin politician was violently assaulted and suffered injuries to her head and neck. Before that, a candidate from the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz was beaten up in the eastern city of Dresden while campaigning and had to undergo surgery.

Both government and opposition parties say their members and supporters have faced a wave of physical and verbal attacks in recent months, and have called on police to step up protection for politicians and election rallies.

Wagenknecht was campaigning in Thuringia, one of two eastern states, along with Saxony, holding elections Sunday when the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, could become the strongest party for the first time.

But Wagenknecht, who formally launched her party in January, also hopes to shake up the picture as the national government has squabbled its way to deep unpopularity. Her party is known by its German acronym BSW.

High ratings for AfD and BSW, both at their strongest in the formerly communist east, have been fed in part by discontent with the national government. The parties in Scholz’s governing alliance squabbled publicly throughout the campaign for the European Parliament election in June and obtained dismal results. The internal hostilities have intensified over a summer plagued by disagreements about the 2025 budget.

Wagenknecht offers a combination of left-wing economic policy, with high wages and generous benefits, and a restrictive approach to migration. She also questions some environmentalists’ plans to combat climate change and opposes current sanctions against Russia, which was once Germany’s leading gas supplier, and German arms supplies to Ukraine.

She has declared that her party will only join state governments that have a “clear position for diplomacy and against the preparation of war.”