After the long dispute with the Wagenknecht camp, Left Party leader Wissler called for renewal. The party must open up and regain trust, she said at the party conference in Augsburg.
According to her own words, the left-wing federal chairwoman Janine Wissler sees an opportunity for a successful new start after the split in the Bundestag faction. “The conflicts in recent years have increasingly paralyzed us and could no longer be resolved,” she said on the second day of the federal party conference in Augsburg, referring to the ten left-wing Bundestag members led by Sahra Wagenknecht.
However, the problems were not easily solved because a dispute had now ended, said Wissler. Structural and strategic tasks were left undone. She referred to “painful election defeats” and “weak structures in the area”. The left must ask itself critically why many who shared the party’s goals still turned away.
“Renew, open and change”
It’s now about regaining trust in order to make the party strong again and to give a voice to those “who are heard far too little,” she said. The Left is fighting to fundamentally change ownership relationships, said Wissler. The traffic light government, on the other hand, is planning “the biggest budget cuts in decades” instead of “appropriately taxing the enormous wealth in this country.” It makes cuts for those “who have little anyway, who need help, who are sick and poor.”
In order to achieve its goals, the party must “renew, open up and change,” said Wissler. She highlighted that in recent weeks “over 700 new members have joined and some former members have rejoined”. Three of the new members introduced themselves personally at the party conference.
Wissler and her co-chair Martin Schirdewan are launching a renewal campaign at the party conference. A corresponding proposal will be discussed and decided on Saturday. “This weekend we are starting a new chapter,” said Wissler.
Bartsch: “The time for excuses is over”
Left parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch also called on the party to make a new beginning. The message of the Augsburg party conference must be “very clear: the paralyzing self-employment is finally over.” Nobody can shift responsibility to others anymore: “The time for excuses is over.” With a view to the last state elections, the Left must admit that it is “not on the rise,” said Bartsch. This is created through “the fit between the programmatic offer and the expectations of normal people in this country”.
He doesn’t see the traffic light coalition “getting the corner again,” said the long-time parliamentary group leader and added: “We have a poverty, a wage and a pension problem in Germany.” Higher taxes and fees for multimillionaires and billionaires would be needed. The SPD is no longer a left-wing party. Billions would be spent on weapons instead of investing more money in basic child welfare, for example.
Resolution of the Bundestag faction “huge cut”
Bartsch described the dissolution of the Bundestag faction as “dramatic”. In Augsburg he spoke of a “huge turning point” and a “huge defeat”. Responsibility lies with “the nine MPs who see the tenth as a political savior,” he added, referring to Wagenknecht and her followers.
At the same time, Bartsch said: “It’s not a split, it’s a marginal split between MPs, usually in the late autumn of their careers.” He accused the renegades of not having had the “backbone” to fight for majorities at party conferences. With regard to the loss of parliamentary group status, Bartsch emphasized: “It’s better to be united with 28 MPs than to be divided with 38.”
Regarding the parliamentary group that the remaining left-wing MPs are now aiming for, he said: “Becoming a group is not a sure-fire success; others decide that.” A group must be recognized as such by the Bundestag; The Left is therefore dependent on the consent of the other factions.
Wagenknecht resigned from the Left in October along with nine other MPs. A new party is due to launch in January, which will emerge from the already founded association “Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht”. As a result, shortly before the party conference, the Left parliamentary group decided to dissolve itself on December 6th. In the future, it will probably only be represented as a group in the Bundestag.
Schirdewan and Rackete as candidates for European elections
The main topic of the party’s three-day meeting in Bavaria is the European elections in June 2024. As part of its European election program, the assembly has already decided that the legal minimum wage in Germany must “increase to at least 15 euros and be automatically increased annually in line with the inflation rate.”
The top candidate should be Schirdewan, who has been a member of the EU Parliament since 2017. According to the will of the party leadership, the non-party climate and human rights activist Carola Rackete should run for second place, followed by the European politician and trade unionist Özlem Demirel and the non-party social doctor Gerhard Trabert. The program for the European elections should focus on the topics of social justice, climate protection, peace and participation.