Bad polls and internal party disputes over the right course - for two days the left debated its program for the federal election, accompanied by calls for more unity.
Berlin (dpa) - Three months before the federal election and under the impression of poor poll results, the Left began the final deliberations on its election program at an online party congress.
Party leader Susanne Hennig-Wellsow called her party on Saturday to kick off unity and optimism.
Co-boss Janine Wissler affirmed the left's plans for a “top-down redistribution” with higher taxes for the rich and companies.
The election program is to be decided by the approximately 580 delegates on Sunday.
Politics with a heart or a clenched fist?
"I can promise you one thing: We will not go down (...) because we stick together, because we are closed (...) and because we actually have a task in this society," said Hennig-Wellsow. It doesn't help anyone if they argue. Hennig-Wellsow appealed to the feeling of togetherness: Without the left, millions of people would have to continue to live in poverty and “would not get out of there”. "There are millions of people in this country who can no longer wait," she said, calling on her party's members to make politics with their hearts.
The Minister President of Thuringia, Bodo Ramelow, took up this later: “It is up to us that we win the hearts of the people,” he said.
The left is the strong guarantee that the country will become more social and just.
Others in the party, on the other hand, are demanding more edge: The party is at a turning point, it is about growth or decline, said Simon Aulepp from the Hessian Left.
It is less about warm politics of the heart and love, "it is about a politics of the clenched fist, (...) it is about overcoming the capitalist system".
More taxes for empire and companies
Top candidate and co-party leader Wissler reaffirmed the will of the left to tax high incomes, assets and companies more heavily.
"We need a redistribution from top to bottom," she told the station "phoenix" on the sidelines of the party congress.
Investments in climate protection, education, infrastructure and the health system have to be paid for by someone.
In return, the left wants to reintroduce wealth tax and tax high incomes and companies more heavily.
"We consider that to be socially just."
“There is money like hay in this country,” said Wissler.
In the Corona crisis, many became poorer, but few also became much richer.
A company like Amazon could “pay reasonable taxes in Germany”.
Large retail groups also made big profits.
Debate about the East and the "lifestyle left"
The left currently has to nibble on bad poll numbers: It only stands between six and seven percent and is discussing its basic orientation again against this background. The debate recently fueled party celebrity Sahra Wagenknecht with her book “The Self-Righteous”, which is high on the bestseller lists. In it, she accuses left-wing parties of having lost sight of social issues and alienating traditional voters with low incomes with gender, climate or organic food debates. She speaks of "lifestyle leftists". Several party members had applied for Wagenknecht to be expelled from the party.
Wagenknecht himself did not speak up on the first day of the party congress, but was still present in the debate.
Various speakers called on the party to stop personal attacks on each other, while others responded to Wagenknecht's theses.
Michael Benecke from the state association of Saxony-Anhalt, where the left had lost a lot in the state elections, accused his party of chasing after “Greens voters, yuppies and others” instead of concentrating on their core clientele, their wishes and concerns.
The “politically correct gender language”, which large parts of the population reject, is the non-plus-ultra for some leftists, he criticized.
It was five past twelve for the left.
"The five percent hurdle in the federal government is very close."
Paul Gruber from the left youth association "solid" contradicted: The East would certainly not be helped by debates about gender, as initiated by Wagenknecht, or sham debates about alleged lifestyle leftists.
Final vote on Sunday
Climate and foreign policy were also debated.
The first points of the election program, for example in the social area, were already voted on on Saturday.
The final vote is scheduled for Sunday.
The draft program includes, among other things, a minimum pension of 1200 euros, the abolition of the debt brake, long-term free public transport and a tax on assets from two million euros to deal with the corona crisis.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210619-99-55665 / 7
More information about the party congress
