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Left boss Katja Kipping
Photo: Christophe Gateau / dpa
If one follows the prognosis of some leftists, the fate of the party will be decided in 2021.
There are two scenarios for the comrades: One sounds like a bright future.
The other is more apocalyptic.
This year, it is often said, the left could become more influential than ever since it was founded in 2007. In Thuringia they want to defend Bodo Ramelow as prime minister, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania forge the next red-red-green alliance, in Berlin Klaus Lederer make governing mayor.
And of course they finally want to come to power in the federal government.
So much for the socialist dream.
But 2021 could also be the year in which the comrades continue their series of bankruptcies, in which they fall below the five percent threshold in the federal election.
It would be the beginning of the end for the party, as some leftists warn against.
Only with the Greens in power
Now you don't have to share this extreme analysis.
But one thing is clear: what will become of the comrades this year is not in their own hands alone, especially not in the Federation.
The well-being of the left depends above all on one party: The Greens are now the party that could score points in the bourgeois camp and thus help a center-left alliance to gain a majority - the only power option for the left.
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Left bosses Bernd Riexinger, Katja Kipping with the Greens chairman Robert Habeck (from left, archive)
Photo: Jens Schicke / imago images
While the SPD, for example, would be easy to inspire for red-red-green, the Greens are also the party that keeps everything open.
Rather, green leaders have been ensnaring the Union for months, even posing as defenders of the government in the corona crisis.
Even Green party leader Anton Hofreiter, who is actually a leftist, hardly finds a nice word for the left in the SPIEGEL interview.
Pleading appeal
How much the comrades worry about the course of the Greens can also be observed on Sunday at the traditional start of the year for the Left.
In her digitally transmitted speech, the outgoing left-wing leader Katja Kipping made a pleading appeal to the eco party.
»In the direction of the Greens«, says Kipping: »The socio-ecological turnaround is only possible with us, with a strong left.
Everyone who plays on black can actually throw their green election program in the bin now. "
The rise of the Greens presents the Left Party with a dilemma that has been causing heated controversy within the party for years.
Because for the comrades, the Greens are not only the preferred partner, but also a competitor in the election campaign.
In terms of content and culture, the overlap between the parties is unmistakable.
In the cities in particular, both now serve similar, sometimes identical milieus.
Lousy competence values
At the same time, the left are quarreling because with climate protection, the Greens brand theme will shape the political future debates.
According to surveys, people think the left is totally incompetent in this field.
The party leadership has long wanted to change that.
This can also be read from the economic policy guidelines that the chairmen Kipping and Bernd Riexinger together with federal managing director Jörg Schindler and treasurer Harald Wolf publish on Sunday.
The paper ties in with the corona crisis, but it is much more: it is the content-related surcharge to the program process of the left and thus to the federal election.
And it joins the efforts to combine the brand essence of the left (social) with the long-term mega-topic (climate protection).
Against highways and domestic flights
“Change course now.
For a socio-ecological way out of the crisis «is the title of the text.
And the authors immediately make it clear what that means for them.
"Climate change is destroying the livelihoods of millions of people," they write.
"In the next few years we will have to convert to a CO2-free, energy and resource-saving economy and infrastructure in order to achieve the 1.5 degree target."
The Greens could hardly put it more sharply.
The left are making a number of specific demands.
They are promoting an »ecological and social turnaround in traffic«, are opposed to the expansion of the motorway, want to completely suspend domestic flights, shut down regional airports and strengthen the railways.
At the same time, they are campaigning for an ecological restructuring of the industry - with the aim of producing CO2-neutrally by 2035.
The comrades want to support this with a state transformation fund amounting to 20 billion euros.
Offer and attack
Of course, according to the left, the welfare state must be massively expanded in parallel.
That means: nationalization of hospitals, more money for nurses, expansion of collective agreements, an increase in the minimum wage to 13 euros - and currently a corona surcharge on social and transfer benefits.
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Riexinger and Kipping at a press conference at the start of the year for the Left
Photo: Christophe Gateau / dpa
To finance all of this, the left is calling for the debt brake to be abolished, a property levy and the introduction of a property tax.
They also want to save on the military - and on "climate-damaging subsidies".
Sure, all of this can also be seen as an offer to the Greens.
The signal: With no party would it be so easy for the Greens to implement their climate policy demands as with the left.
And indeed: if the Greens were able to choose their partners after the general election and still opt for the Union, they would at least have to explain.
Controversial eco sound
At the same time, however, the left program is likely to become a frontal attack on the Greens in the election campaign.
Asking and boxing - that is the motto.
In the internal part of the committee meeting at the beginning of the year, party leader Riexinger, according to the participants, swears the comrades to attack.
One could not allow disappointed Greens voters to migrate to newly formed climateists like those in Baden-Württemberg.
However, the eco sound is still controversial among the comrades.
That becomes clear on this day too.
The left has to work on its communication, says parliamentary group leader Amira Mohamed Ali in her public statement.
It must be clear why one should vote for the left and not another party.
"It is our concern to strengthen the social in the socio-ecological transformation."
Mohamed Ali's co-group leader Dietmar Bartsch has a similar view.
"The left is the welfare state party," says Bartsch.
"We should put that in the shop window." That probably means: less green, more red.
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