left in the Bundestag
Group leader Bartsch is also resigning – with an unusual appeal
Dietmar Bartsch gives up his position as chairman of the parliamentary group of the Left Party
© Bernd von Jutrczenka / DPA
For decades, Dietmar Bartsch has helped shape the left, for the past eight years at the head of the parliamentary group. Now he is leaving – not because of the current crisis, but in spite of it.
In the middle of the deep crisis of the left there is the long-standing parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch resigns from office. The 65-year-old explained in a letter to the parliamentary group on Wednesday that the German Press Agency has received. Bartsch emphasized that he made the decision a long time ago. A few days ago, his co-chairman Amira Mohamed Ali announced her departure. The background is the dispute over the direction of MP Sahra Wagenknecht.
© serienlicht / Imago Images
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Wagenknecht does not support the political line of federal chairmen Janine Wissler and Martin Schirdewan and wants to decide by the end of the year whether to found her own party. If that happens, the left and its parliamentary group are threatened with a split. It is expected that several of the 39 MPs would then leave the left along with Wagenknecht. With fewer than 37 seats, the faction status would be lost, and the party would also lose money, posts and the influence of the small opposition party.
Dietmar Bartsch does not leave Linke because of the current crisis
Bartsch did not justify his planned withdrawal with the current problems, but wrote to the MPs: “My decision to give up the chairmanship of the parliamentary group after eight years, in which I led the parliamentary group first with Sahra Wagenknecht and then with Amira Mohamed Ali, is a long time ago in the last federal election. My family and closest political friends were aware of this decision. Yes, many have strongly urged me in the past few days and weeks to run again in this difficult situation for the party. Ultimately, I stuck to my decision .”
Bartsch has been co-chair of the left parliamentary group since 2015, first with Wagenknecht and most recently with Mohamed Ali. She had justified her withdrawal by protesting against the way the party leadership dealt with Wagenknecht. Bartsch initially left his future open. Now he too has made up his mind. Who could follow the two, is open.
With Bartsch, one of the most prominent leftists is retiring from the front row. The 65-year-old comes from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and has held high party offices for decades. For a long time he was the national director of the predecessor party PDS and the newly founded Left Party in 2007. In 2009 he managed the federal election campaign. In 2012 he ran for party leader, but failed to get the necessary majority. In 2017, Bartsch was the top candidate for the federal election alongside Wagenknecht, and in 2021 he ran with party leader Wissler.
Bartsch calls for more smiles
In his letter to the MPs, he appealed to his party: “Many are currently babbling about the end of the left. You will be wrong again if the values we are fighting for in society, such as humanity, solidarity, cordiality and a lot Smile again determine our actions and at the same time we draw the necessary conclusions from the history of left-wing parties.”
Bartsch has repeatedly warned of the dangers of a split in the left and has criticized Wagenknecht’s flirtation with founding a party. When Wissler and Schirdewan, along with the rest of the party executive, resigned from Wagenknecht in June, he showed support for the party leadership.
All in all, the dispute on the left is not just about Wagenknecht as a person, but about the question of what modern “left” politics is. The party leadership courts the climate movement and wants radical climate protection combined with social balance. Wagenknecht and their supporters warn against too great a burden from climate protection. They want to limit migration and continue cheap energy imports from Russia despite the Ukraine war.
At the most recent federal party conference of the left in 2022, Wagenknecht’s supporters could not prevail. Wissler and Schirdewan, on the other hand, secured the support of a majority of the delegates.