Status: December 30, 2021 6:43 p.m.
Losses in the Bundestag election, the dispute over the committee chairmanship: The year that is drawing to a close was not a good one for the Left Party. Now she wants to close the ranks. But how can that work?
After the defeat in the Bundestag election and a change of government, a new era begins for the Left Party as well. It has shrunk and has to reposition itself so that it can safely move into Parliament next time. However, attempts to appear more closed after the election have not necessarily been crowned with success.
March separately, lose together
March separately, lose together. The Left can post the year 2021 under this heading. Too much open dispute leads to the realization of parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch: “60 years of electoral research have clearly shown: parties at odds are not elected.”
And that’s how it turned out. The Left slipped below five percent and is only represented as a parliamentary group in the Bundestag through three direct mandates.
Trying to reinvent yourself
Time to reinvent yourself. The party leadership composed of Susanne Hennig-Wellsow and Janine Wissler has published a paper entitled “Reorienting the Compass”. Last sentence: “Only if we change can we regain trust.”
When presenting the paper, Wissler said: “If the world changes, then of course the left must also change, and then we also have to give socialist answers to the challenges of the 21st century.”
Unity – not even tentatively
Climate change, digitization, right-wing populism – all challenges that didn’t exist in the past. In addition, there should be an analysis and a member survey by the party conference in summer at the latest. The point is to find out why the party lost so much in the federal election. Of course, the battered party could move closer together before the first results. Could. But Sahra Wagenknecht is already making a name for herself as an unvaccinated person – once again in contrast to the party line.
The chairwoman Hennig-Wellsow seems a bit perplexed when she says: “I cannot and will not explain Sahra Wagenknecht any more.” And no sooner has the party executive spoken out in favor of a general vaccination requirement, as it were, as a last resort, than the parliamentary group leader Amira Mohamed Ali breaks away from it.
Maximum PR damage
And then the new parliamentary group: down to 39 people. Predominantly the older ones, the younger ones on the lower list positions barely made it into the Bundestag. The only committee that the group can still chair is the one on the economy and the climate. It should be Klaus Ernst, an old school trade unionist and industrial politician, that’s what the parliamentary group wants.
The party leadership is against it, but does not have a majority in the MPs. And then there are also leftists who reveal the plan. The result: There is a campaign on the net against Ernst as committee chairman. More than 10,000 signatures come together, many from the left and a lot of green.
Maximum PR damage
What an escalation. Nevertheless, the top of the parliamentary group Klaus Ernst prevails. Wissler and Hennig-Wellsow, after all, they are also MPs, have to watch it powerlessly. The PR damage: maximum. Hennig-Wellsow has no choice but to condemn the campaign: “We reject all public campaigns, including against Klaus Ernst.”
In defense of the attacked: not a word. The contrast between the parliamentary group leadership and the party chairman can no longer be denied.
Desire for renewal
Heidi Reichinnek, state chairwoman from Lower Saxony and new to the Bundestag, also voted for Ernst. In the dispute, she tends to agree with the top of the group, but regrets that the left seems so divided. She says: “A lot of the discussions that I know have been very solidary, and you have to accept results that you are not so satisfied with. And when we focus on our common content, on what connects us , then it’s not as difficult as you think. ” But the public evidence of this is still pending.
MEP Nicole Gohlke thinks less traditionally. She fears that your party might be stuck with very old messages. That could be directed against all those who believe that one can still win elections today only with the demands from the time when the Hartz reforms went against it. Gohlke complains: “We were too little recognizable as the left in the Bundestag, which speaks with one voice and wants to implement something together. And I think that is the first task to achieve that in a clever discussion of the politics of the Traffic light.”
Close the ranks?
Because the coalition of the SPD, Greens and FDP has so far left a lot of left-wing wishes unfulfilled. That goes from the wealth tax to the pension up to the increase of the standard rates for the basic security. All of this could be reason enough for the left to close ranks. However, there are no signs of this.