The Left wants to start the European election campaign with party leader Schirdewan and activist Rackete as the top duo. The party conference is all about renewal and sharpening the content.
“Those who wanted to leave are gone. We have space.” With this kind of slogan the left sums up the situation in which it finds itself now. And she wants to show that we are open – for example to people from movements and activists.
One of them is Stella Merendino, a nurse and trade unionist from Berlin. She is a new member and was immediately welcomed onto the big stage. “First of all, I see it as my job to spread the word,” says Merendino. She wants to show that the Left is the party with a special perspective for young people. “People who are also fully committed to their professional lives.”
Party leadership wants to open up the left
This practically already states part of the goals that the party leadership is pursuing: opening the left as a political home for activists. A signal that is also associated with the name Carola Rackete. Captain, activist for refugees and for climate protection. In the evening she was voted second on the European election list with 77.8 percent. Party leader Martin Schirdewan was chosen as the top candidate with 86.9 percent.
The current parliamentary group leader of the Left in the Bundestag, Dietmar Bartsch, points out in his speech that that is probably not enough. “With the last state elections, we have to admit that the left is not on the rise,” he says. Political heat is not created just by talking about person A and publicly criticizing person B. “Impetus is generated by the fit between the programmatic offer and the expectations of ordinary people in this country.”
“Peaceful we must become”
That’s why the party conference was focused on sharpening the content. Classic left-wing themes: social justice, higher minimum wage, redistribution, solidarity for everyone worldwide – and above all: peace.
“We don’t want to become capable of war, we have to become capable of peace. And that means, first of all, not supplying weapons all over the world,” says party leader Janine Wissler in her speech at the end of the hall. “We want to counter the exhaustion caused by all the crises and the growing resignation with courage and hope,” she says. “Time for justice, time for attitude – at a time when so many are leaning to the right.”
Time for justice and attitude – that could be the motto of the left, as the party leaders imagine it. And it looks like the party congress is rallying behind this clear course. There is a spirit of optimism among the delegates.
Former party leader Bernd Riexinger speaks of a liberation: a group is gone that sees no contradictions between climate policy and social justice policy, or in representing the interests of migrants.
At least for now, that seems to be holding. At least for the time being.