Party leader Janine Wissler has called on the left to finally stop self-employment. “Our party, which we founded 15 years ago, is in a deep crisis,” said Wissler at the start of the federal party conference in Erfurt. The truth is that “we’ve lost more often in recent years than we could have gotten over.” Her party has repeatedly left the impression that the struggles among themselves are more important to her than those for her political goals. “We have to change that,” Wissler said in what was probably the most important speech of her political career.
It is her first face-to-face party conference as party leader and theoretically it could be her last. In the eagerly awaited election of the new dual leadership on Saturday, Wissler, 41, will be challenged by Heidi Reichinnek, 34, member of the Bundestag. For the second chief post, there is a duel between the Leipzig member of the Bundestag Sören Pellmann and the EU parliamentarian Martin Schirdewan. Party circles expected a majority for the Wissler and Schirdewan duo on Friday.
There will be no duel with Sahra Wagenknecht – she is absent due to illness
For the left, the party congress is also about groundbreaking substantive decisions – above all about their relationship with Russia. It has always been a delicate balancing act for the left, but since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine it has been an existential question. Wissler’s party executive presented the delegates with a key foreign policy proposal that sharply criticizes the federal government’s rearmament program and the arms deliveries to Ukraine, but at the same time wants to rid the party once and for all of the suspicion that it understands Putin. The motion contained the sentence: “We strongly condemn Russia’s criminal war of aggression.”
On the other hand, there is resistance from Sahra Wagenknecht’s camp, who wants to delete this sentence, among other things. There will be no duel with Wagenknecht in Erfurt. The publicly best-known politician on the left canceled her participation due to illness. Wagenknecht’s amendment should keep the delegates in suspense even in their absence, the debate on foreign policy planned for Saturday is explosive in all directions.
In her opening speech, however, Wissler, who had recently been heavily criticized, managed to get the hall going in her favor. “We have a bloody obligation to keep this party together,” she exclaimed, fighting back tears of emotion when she received a standing ovation. Nevertheless, Wissler should make three crosses when this party congress is over.