The left currently governs in four federal states, but is in an existential crisis. A restart should succeed. The base trusts the old party leader and a member of the European Parliament from Berlin.
MEP Martin Schirdewan is the new party leader of the left. The 46-year-old Berliner was elected co-chairman at the party conference in Erfurt. The dual leadership is completed by Janine Wissler, who is given a second chance from the grassroots: the 41-year-old Hessian was re-elected, although she was controversial after a series of defeats in federal and state elections as well as internal trench warfare.
Both prevailed in the first ballot with an absolute majority against several competitors. They are seen as real politicians who get along well with each other and are supposed to lead the left out of the crisis after electoral defeats and trench warfare. Wissler received 57.5 percent of the votes, Berlin's Schirdewan 61.3 percent.
Wissler has been at the head of the left since February 2021. Her co-chair Susanne-Hennig Wellsow resigned in April in annoyance. The 46-year-old Schirdewan is co-chairman of the Left in the European Parliament. In his application speech, he said he had experience in "steering and leading a motley collection of leftists". Officially, he competed for the Thuringian state association.
At the party conference, Gregor Gysi, the former leader of the Left parliamentary group, called for a new start so that the Left would not slip into insignificance 15 years after it was founded by the PDS and WASG. The crisis also resulted from the fact that it was no longer clear what was the majority and what was the minority opinion on the left. He spoke of denunciations by party members among themselves. "This is unbearable."
"Stop all that petty crap in our party," the 74-year-old appealed to the delegates. The left has a place in society that cannot be replaced by any other party. "The country needs democratic socialists."
In Erfurt, the Left also wants to determine its highly controversial position on Russia and its war of aggression in Ukraine.
