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Parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch, party leader Katja Kipping
Photo: WOLFGANG RATTAY / REUTERS
If you want to know what the future of the left looks like, you could find answers this weekend in the Thuringian town of Sömmerda.
There the comrades meet for their state party congress.
The Thuringian state chairwoman Susanne Hennig-Wellsow will of course be there.
But a woman from Hesse has also announced herself: the local parliamentary group leader of the Left in the state parliament, Janine Wissler.
In Sömmerda, there is little doubt about that, so - for the first time together - the future leadership of the Left Party will appear.
Six weeks before the federal party conference, Wissler and Hennig-Wellsow are the only applicants for the chairmanship of the comrades.
Everything indicates that there are no more serious opposing candidates.
That also means: for another leftist, who will also be in Sömmerda, everything is going according to plan.
"I'm looking forward to it", tweeted Katja Kipping the day before the meeting in Thuringia.
No wonder.
A top duo with Wissler and Hennig-Wellsow - that would also be Kipping's favored solution.
Like many others, the outgoing party leader held discussions for months, sounding out the situation and exploring opportunities.
At the federal party conference at the end of October, there are board elections.
Who should lead the comrades into the important Bundestag election year?
Kipping himself, after more than eight years in office?
Even allies advised against it.
Then at least someone who continues the party in their favor.
However, not everything went smoothly in the search for possible successors.
Preferred candidates canceled, and Hennig-Wellsow also hesitated in the meantime.
Finally there should have been a joint meeting of the three women again.
At the beginning of September, Wissler and Hennig-Wellsow finally made it public: They are running.
Is everything going well for Kipping now?
Kipping needs support
The question of succession is of great importance to the incumbent chairwoman.
It's about her political legacy as party leader.
But it's also about her own career.
It is an open secret that Kipping wants to be the top candidate for the federal elections, then parliamentary group leader or, who knows, maybe even a minister.
But for that she needs powerful supporters.
Hennig-Wellsow has long been a confidante of the chairmen.
Like Kipping, she advocates a pragmatic course, the left wants to lead into a red-red-green government in 2021.
Wissler is one of the party left, but there he is one of the part that feels particularly committed to social movements.
Kipping had made a pact with this group in the past, and Wissler has been their deputy for years.
The new duo would be the power-political continuation of the previous left wing.
But that's not all. Kipping and her co-chairman Bernd Riexinger have prescribed a new course for the comrades.
They should be younger and more urban, socio-politically liberal and a real alternative to the Greens on climate issues.
The strategy is controversial in the party.
Wissler and Hennig-Wellsow are also a promise that it will still stick to this line.
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Kipping and Hennig-Wellsow after the Thuringian state election in 2019
Photo: RALPH ORLOWSKI / REUTERS
On a summer day in September, Kipping is sitting in a café in Berlin-Mitte and smiling.
She is doing very well, she says.
Why not?
It wasn't too long ago that Kipping was in great difficulty within the party.
The bitter power struggles with the traditional left in the parliamentary group, above all with Sahra Wagenknecht, had also seriously damaged them.
But while Wagenknecht gave up, exasperated and exhausted, Kipping stayed in office.
In the past few months she was even conspicuously present in public, sat on talk shows, initiated debates, most recently on reducing working hours.
"She has filled the gap," says a person who had stuck to Wagenknecht in the earlier left wing warfare.
Such praise from the enemy within the party would have been unthinkable until recently.
Now even big targets seem to be within reach again.
Kipping is certainly far from being a top position.
Especially since Wissler in particular is difficult to calculate for them.
In the past few months, the party left has spoken to a wide variety of forces about its own chances, with Bartsch reformers, even with the controversial old star of the left wing, Oskar Lafontaine.
When asked, all three women reject rumors that there is a deal with their potential successors.
But Wissler is not an opponent of kipping.
And Hennig-Wellsow recently said in SPIEGEL: "Katja Kipping is one of the most important personalities in the party and a woman we must not lose."
Judging by what seemed possible for a long time, Kipping has kept many options for the future.
Power relations shifted
Dietmar Bartsch is someone for whom a lot also depends on the new party leadership.
Like Kipping, the parliamentary group leader also tried to have a say in the race for the left-wing chairmanship.
Obviously with less success than kipping.
Bartsch would have loved to see his own companion on the tour - the Parliamentary Managing Director Jan Korte.
But in the meantime he has given up, it is said from reform circles.
Apparently, Korte has little desire to change jobs.
The candidacy of the two women would be a big hurdle for him anyway.
Bartsch supporters are still flirting with Korte's alleged application.
But it should only be a question of maneuvering oneself into a better negotiating position for filling the other board positions.
The matter clearly shows how the balance of power on the left has shifted.
The two once large competing blocs, the left-wing camp around ex-parliamentary leader Sahra Wagenknecht and the reformers around Bartsch, still have the say in the parliamentary group.
But the alliance of the former opponents has led to disintegration on both sides.
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Parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch
Photo: Uwe Koch / Eibner-Pressefoto / imago images / Eibner
Both groups now obviously lack the strength to seriously intervene in the battle for the presidency.
There is also real humiliation.
It is the first Thursday in September when the heads of the powerful Eastern regional associations meet in a Berlin restaurant - the evening before Wissler and Hennig-Wellsow declare their candidacy.
The East Pragmatists disagree on the chairman's question.
Hennig-Wellsow receives a lot of support, especially from Berlin and Brandenburg.
In contrast, the Bartsch supporters in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt do not want to give up yet.
Jan Korte could compete, it is said that evening.
In the end the heads of state adjourn.
In the following week they want to bring Hennig-Wellsow and Korte to the table and talk about everything again before anyone goes public.
That is the plan.
The next day, however, first Janine Wissler announced her candidacy, a few hours later Susanne Hennig-Wellsow - contrary to the agreement of the previous evening.
It is therefore clear that there is no joint proposal from the East for the time being.
Bartsch's people are duped.
What does that mean for Bartsch and his ambitions for the renewed top candidate?
The parliamentary group leader says: "For the important state elections and the federal elections, we need an overall strategic and personnel structure with which we can be successful."
Obviously he also means himself.
In fact, Bartsch can still rely on his celebrities and his reputation, especially among the SPD and the Greens, he enjoys high recognition.
On top of that, Bartsch is one of the most experienced election campaigners.
But within the party, his backing has been crumbling for years.
In order to survive in the left-wing power struggle in the coming weeks and months, a number of discussions will certainly have to be held.
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