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The new left leaders: Janine Wissler (l) and Susanne Hennig-Wellsow
Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka / dpa
Janine Wissler and Susanne Hennig-Wellsow did it: For the first time, two women are at the head of a party represented in the Bundestag.
The two will direct the fate of the left in the future.
They were elected with large majorities at the digital party conference of the left.
Wissler, previously left parliamentary group leader in Hesse, received a good result with 84.2 percent, the previous Thuringian left-wing chairwoman Hennig-Wellsow received 70.5 percent of the delegate's votes.
The women replace the previous bosses Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger.
Both had led the Left Party for almost nine years.
The election at the party congress is provisional.
The legally certain result of the postal vote will only be announced at the end of next week.
Who are the women who will now control the party in the Karl Liebknecht House in Berlin?
"Fundamentally changing society"
Janine Wissler gave an anti-capitalist, emotional speech at the party congress.
She railed against the "neoliberal creed", pointed out the low wages in the health sector and the forgotten unemployed.
"We will never come to terms with these conditions," cried Wissler.
A "revolt against the situation" is needed, and large real estate companies must be expropriated.
"We want to fundamentally change society," said Wissler.
Wissler had a lightning career in the Left Party.
In 2008, the then 27-year-old moved into the Hessian state parliament with her left hand, a year later she took over the chairmanship of the parliamentary group, initially with Willi van Ooyen, later alone.
Lafontaine and Riexinger as sponsors
The comrades in the Hessian state parliament praised Wissler for her pointed speeches and her quick-wittedness.
Even at the federal level, the political scientist was considered a great talent from an early age, Oskar Lafontaine and Bernd Riexinger were among her sponsors.
In 2014 Wissler was elected deputy party chairman, taking over the post from the outgoing Sahra Wagenknecht.
Like her predecessor, Wissler comes from the left wing of the party.
She is a Trotskyist, she was shaped in the sectarian movement "Marx21" and in the street protest.
Even many leftists suspect the group; they have no more than an outsider status in the party.
The Trotskyists base their political agenda on Karl Marx, in the past they have tried to subvert other left parties - above all the SPD.
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Was once a passionate Trotskyist: Janine Wissler
Photo: Fredrik von Erichsen / picture alliance / dpa
The goal: to entice members away from the competition or at least to shift their positions towards the Marxian society.
"Marx21" is observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Shortly after the decision to run for chairmanship, she declared her membership ended.
In any case, she was hardly active anymore, Wissler said laconically at the time.
No more Bundeswehr missions abroad - and abolish the protection of the constitution
Wissler wants to open her party to ecological voters, but is not a big fan of red-red-green.
After all, in 2008 she was ready in Hesse to tolerate a red-green government under SPD leader Andrea Ypsilanti.
The alliance failed at the time because of the hesitation in the SPD.
The realos on the left are now hoping that Wissler is also open to a possible center-left alliance at the federal level.
But that should hardly be possible without radical concessions.
Wissler wants to "overcome" capitalism and an end to all foreign deployments of the German armed forces. At the Leipzig party conference in 2018, she called for the protection of the constitution to be abolished.
It was about overcoming "powerlessness and resignation", she said now - and bringing about a "system change for a society based on solidarity".
"Good morning in Absurdistan"
The second party leader is Susanne Hennig-Wellsow, the Thuringian state and parliamentary group leader.
In a team she stands for successful governance.
In her state, her party has been the prime minister in a red-red-green coalition with Bodo Ramelow since 2014.
In Thuringia, Hennig-Wellsow has achieved what has not so far been possible in Berlin: She has formed a pretty close team within the party.
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Has become known nationwide with a bouquet of flowers: Susanne Hennig-Wellsow
Photo: Michael Reichel / dpa
Hennig-Wellsow was a figure skater and switched to politics early on.
In 2004 the former competitive athlete was elected as the youngest member of the Thuringian state parliament and repeatedly fought hard arguments with the CDU.
She became known nationwide after the election of Kurrzeit Prime Minister Thomas Kemmerich.
In the election on February 5, 2020, she threw the flowers at the feet of the FDP politician Kemmerich, who was responsible for government with votes from the AfD - and thus rose to become an icon of the left.
In the days that followed, she greeted the journalists who remained in parliament with a "Good morning in Absurdistan".
In her speech at the party congress, Hennig-Wellsow drew from her Eastern past.
As a child of the turnaround, she had already experienced a time of upheaval and worries, the corona pandemic now reminds her of the years after 1989.
At that time she "felt with all brutality how people are being destroyed", today it is similar.
Everyone who is involved in the Left Party has different reasons for this - "but what we all have in common is that we want people to be better off."
Accordingly, she swore the delegates to a possible government responsibility in the federal government.
"We have been a protest party for many years," said Hennig-Wellsow, "but people have no time to wait for us, they live in the here and now."
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