It is a great day for the comrades. More than 23 percent in Saxony, in Brandenburg it is even 28 percent. The numbers impressively underpin the self-image. In the east one chooses on the left, in the east one is a people's party. It is September 19, 2004.
A lot has happened in the 15 years since then. The party of that time is no longer called PDS, but left. And a special status in the new federal states, which is clear since this Sunday at the latest, can hardly be a speech.
The left has crashed in the east. Already at the 2017 general election, the left here only 17.3 percent - far less than in the previous votes. In Brandenburg and Saxony, they now only come to just over 10 percent. The comrades are now reaching West level. Actual state: a small party of many. A disaster for the left.
"Unprecedented disaster"
The shock is correspondingly high. Dietmar Bartsch, fraction leader in the Bundestag, announces itself on election night via Twitter to word. His party is experiencing "an unprecedented disaster". Foreign Minister Stefan Liebich calls the result "a resounding slap in the face". And the party member Sevim Dagdelen sees the comrades even in an "existential crisis".
In fact, the identity of the party has long been at stake. As a legal successor to the SED, the PDS succeeded after the fall of the Wall in uniting disappointed East Germans. In the new federal states, the party was well organized, here appeared the comrades as a stunted and offered at the same time a projection screen for protest - no matter whether you were governing yourself or not. The Left, that was just the party of the East.
State election Saxony 2019
Preliminary final result
List voices Result
Shares in percent
CDU
32.1
-7.3
The left
10.4
-8.5
SPD
7.7
-4.7
AFD
27.5
+17.7
green
8.6
+2.9
FDP
4.5
+0.7
Free voters
3.4
+1.8
allocation of seats
Total: 118
Majority: 60 seats
14
10
11
46
37
The left (14)
SPD (10)
Green (11)
CDU (46)
AfD (37)
Source: Provincial Returning Officer
Results in detail
But these attachment forces have become weak. Instead, it seems that it is now avenging that the Left has never discussed a question in recent years: what is the party actually?
Point of contact for the anger of the hung? Left liberal force? Pragmatic ruling party? Basin for radical activists? In the meantime, there are so many groups and platforms in the party, sometimes with very different views on Europe, in foreign policy, in questions of democracy, that one can easily lose track of things.
Years of strife
The best example of the confusion was the year-long dispute between faction leader Sahra Wagenknecht and party chairman Katja Kipping. Although this was also characterized by a power struggle, but at the core it was also about the question of how the left should stage: as unconditionally cosmopolitan - with which the party could score in an urban educated middle class; or as migration critical to regain AfD voters. There was never a real agreement.
Wagenknecht even lays down again. The party must be "again an alternative for all those who have been abandoned by the ruling policy for years," writes the top comrade on Sunday evening in her newsletter. "When we are perceived by these people as the green-liberal lifestyle party rather than their voice, when they feel we are looking down on them because they do not master the hip big-city code, then it is only natural that they get rid of them turn away. "
In fact, the left loses in all directions. There is the AFD, which is particularly troublesome for the comrades, especially in Saxony. It is now the right-wing populists who skim off the protest electoral potential. But in Brandenburg, former Left voters are also migrating to the SPD or the Greens to a similar degree. A dilemma for the party.
Landtag election Brandenburg 2019
Preliminary final result
Second vote result
Shares in percent
SPD
26.2
-5.7
CDU
15.6
-7.4
The left
10.7
-7.9
AFD
23.5
+11.3
green
10.8
+4.6
BVB / Free Voters
5
+2.3
FDP
4.1
+2.6
other
4.1
+0.2
allocation of seats
Total: 88
Majority: 45 seats
10
25
10
5
15
23
The left (10)
SPD (25)
Green (10)
BVB / Free Voters (5)
CDU (15)
AfD (23)
Source: Provincial Returning Officer
Results in detail
It seems inevitable that the elections in Brandenburg and Saxony will therefore cause fierce clashes on the left. It is quite possible that the comrades will pull together until the Thuringia election in late October. Thanks to the official bonus, at least there is the chance that the party will defend its only premiership with Bodo Ramelow.
"Need strategic realignment"
But at the latest, the conflict should start. "Must provide strategic and programmatic and other basic questions and answer," Bartsch tweets in the evening. "We urgently need a strategic realignment," writes Dagdelen.
What both probably mean: a new party leadership. Board elections are scheduled for next year. The two controversial left-wing leaders Kipping and Bernd Riexinger will then have been in office for eight years. The comrades have a non-binding rule according to which no one should hold such a post any longer. But it is not excluded that at least Kipping reappears anyway.
And even with the Bundestag left is an important personnel decision, which could now be superimposed by the image crisis. After the announced withdrawal of Wagenknecht, the question arises, who in the future will lead the party alongside Bartsch - or even if someone challenges the prominent reformer. In autumn, elections should be held if the left does not postpone the vote.
Personnel questions have been clarified so far always about an East-West Proporz. But if the left in the West - such as in Bremen - enters stable results, but sank in the new federal states against it, that should change the balance of power in their own ranks sustainable. One way or the other: The Left, then it looks at least, is just shrinking to the all-German party.