Party chairmanship of the left – politics

The left is looking for a new party leadership, but it is not looking in a very focused way. Grassroots democracy is a sacred asset in the Left Party, you can join online at any time and run for the presidency five minutes later. Ten applicants had registered by Thursday, but only four of them have realistic chances. At the party conference in Erfurt, all ten have the same speaking time. Grassroots democracy can be time-consuming. Because the double leadership is quoted with at least one women’s place, the decision is de facto in two duels: Janine Wissler against Heidi Reichinnek. And Sören Pellmann against Martin Schirdewan.

Janine Wissler

The facts rather speak against Wissler. Since taking over the party chairmanship of the Left Party in February 2021, she has lost a federal election, several state elections and a co-chair. Wissler and Susanne Hennig-Wellsow failed as a duo because they never really found each other. Hennig-Wellsow garnished her resignation with criticism of Wissler’s handling of allegations of sexism in the party. In doing so, she left the remaining top half of the team with a heavy burden.

Nevertheless, Janine Wissler, 41, is the favorite in the election on Saturday afternoon. She is undoubtedly one of the most quick-witted speakers in her party, even if she has not demonstrated this as regularly as in her time as parliamentary group leader in the Hessian state parliament. Party leader Wissler formulates more cautiously and diplomatically, even her supporters think she must finally release her inner handbrake. Wissler has worn himself out trying to pacify the inner-party trench warfare and please everyone a bit. In any case, the bottom line was that it didn’t make it any easier for voters to vote left.

She has made up her mind: If she is re-elected again, then you will see a different party leader. One that appears more combative, both outwardly and inwardly.

Heidi Reichinnek

Reichinnek calls her left arm her political arm. He is tattooed with an image of Rosa Luxemburg and has a clock that reads five to twelve. It wasn’t intended that way, but it still fits the state of the party. Reichinnek challenges Wissler because she thinks that the Left urgently needs new faces. Reichinnek sees it as a sales advantage that she has only been a member of the Bundestag since September and, at 34, is the youngest member of the left-wing faction. She not only wears ripped jeans at the Rammstein concert, but also in her MP’s office. The departure that she wants to embody is fashionably recognizable.

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But behind the youthful facade lies a lightning-fast career. Reichinnek joined Die Linke in 2015 and just four years later became state chairwoman in Lower Saxony. As a novice in the Bundestag, she was promoted directly to deputy parliamentary group leader. She aroused the suspicion of internal critics at the latest when she took over the party leadership. Even if she vehemently denies this, she has not gotten rid of the suspicion that parliamentary group leaders Dietmar Bartsch and Amira Mohamed Ali have placed her as her opponent to Wissler. She accuses the current chairman of not supporting the party in the area enough. “There’s nothing coming,” says Reichinnek, also with a view to the upcoming state elections in Lower Saxony.

But she caused irritation in her home association in particular because she announced her candidacy for party chairmanship in the capital’s press. Many comrades think that three days earlier at the state party conference in Hanover, it would have been a good opportunity for that.

Soren Pellman

There aren’t many winner types left in the Left Party, but Pellmann has some justification for claiming to be one. If he hadn’t won one of three direct mandates from the left in Leipzig in the 2021 federal election, the party would no longer be in the Bundestag today. He seems to enjoy the role of lifesaver. In any case, he derives from this his claim to now also take over the party chairmanship.

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The elementary school teacher Pellmann, 46, is considered to be a politician who is particularly close to the people. He likes to hand out handmade soap and homemade jam at his campaign stands. In his constituency, which also includes the left-wing alternative district of Connewitz, that seems to be well received. Pellmann had already received the most first votes there in 2017. In the Bundestag faction, however, he has not necessarily attracted attention as a top performer beyond jam production in the past four and a half years.

Pellmann underpinned his candidature for party leader with a 10-point program in which he called for the “integration of all celebrities”. He didn’t have to say that he meant Sahra Wagenknecht, who has fallen out of favor with many comrades for her role in the opposition within the party. Wagenknecht has declared her support for Pellmann, but he now seems to have realized that this does not necessarily increase his chances of being elected. Pellmann has since apologized for signing a paper from the Wagenknecht camp in which NATO was partly to blame for the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Before the party congress, he now announces “the end of the I-AGs” in the left. His prominent supporter can also feel addressed there. However, due to illness, Sahra Wagenknecht will not be present at the party conference.

Martin Schirdewan

In Schirdewan’s family tree is the whole eventful history of a party that has shed its skin several times. His grandfather Karl Schirdewan was a KPD politician, concentration camp prisoner and high-ranking SED functionary, but fell out of favor because of his critical attitude towards Stalinism. The grandson Martin Schirdewan, 46, represents the successor party to the KPD, SED and PDS as co-chairman of the parliamentary group in the EU Parliament. He wants to keep his mandate in Brussels even if he is elected head of the Berlin party headquarters at the weekend.

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That’s why his opponent Pellmann was already agitated: “Europe is far away”. But Schirdewan is of the opinion that Pellmann did himself a disservice with this statement. One should ask a Thuringian farmer who needs subsidies how far away Europe is for him. In any case, Schirdewan sees his experience in Brussels as a “huge bonus” for the 2024 European elections, in which the left, plagued by all sorts of election slippage, wants to turn the tide. Critics, on the other hand, point out that Schirdewan was already the top candidate in the 2019 European elections, which began his party’s series of defeats.

Behind his application for party leader is the powerful Thuringian state association and thus also the only prime minister of the left, Bodo Ramelow. So Schirdewan has home advantage at the Erfurt party conference. After the Thuringian Hennig-Wellsow withdrew from the party leadership, he is now to carry the Thuringian model of success to Berlin.

Schirdewan’s relationship with Wissler is good, but not with Reichinnek. Although there will be a formal vote on Saturday for individual applications, it is no secret that Wissler and Schirdewan see themselves as an unofficial team solution.