Outlets including the BBC, The Guardian, Euronews, and Der Spiegel have described the party as far-left. Among academics, there is a general consensus that at least some sections of the party are extremist; however, political scientist Richard Stöss states that they make up less than ten percent of the party membership – 5,000 of 62,000 members according to the BfV – and compete for resources among themselves, and there is little risk of these groups becoming dominant and exerting major influence over the party's leadership and platform. Eckhard Jesse states that, while The Left is far more accepting of the Basic Law than parties like the National Democratic Party of Germany, the presence of its extremist factions means the party overall represents a "soft left-wing extremism". Political scientist Karl-Rudolf Korte states that the party is well-integrated within the constitutional order, and "has actually rendered considerable services to German democracy" through the integration of East German protest movement into the parliamentary system. Nonetheless, he criticises the party's continued association with extremist groups. The Left has also been characterised as left-wing populist by researchers such as Cas Mudde and Tilman Mayer. Florian Hartleb states that the party is "social-populist". According to Frank Decker, the party during the leadership of Oskar Lafontaine could be described as left-wing populist. In 2011, Bundestag deputy and later party co-leader Katja Kipping stated that she believed The Left needed "a double strategy [of] social-ecological restructuring plus left-wing populism" to become attractive to voters. She elaborated: "Left-wing populism means targeting those who are marginalized in our society in a targeted and pointed manner." Association with the SED The Left's position as the successor of the PDS and SED has made it subject to significant controversy and criticism, as well as claims that the party is sympathetic to the former GDR. Prominent member Sahra Wagenknecht, who served as co-leader of the party's Bundestag group from 2015 to 2019, is well known for her controversial statements on this issue. In a 2009 interview, she rejected the characterisation of East Germany as a dictatorship or unconstitutional state (). Other incidents include a walkout conducted in 2007 by the Left's delegation in the Landtag of Saxony during a German Unity Day ceremony in protest of the presence of Joachim Gauck, former East German pro-democracy campaigner and later Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records, who was the keynote speaker at the event. The