Little Red Riding Hood and Robin Hood: Left party decides on election manifesto

For two days the left debated its election platform.

Inwardly, the party is conciliatory and hopes that, with a few robust messages, the upturn in the polls will still succeed.

Berlin (dpa) - Three months before the federal election, the Left has now also submitted its offer to the voters: The election program lists what the party stands for on more than 120 pages.

Around 580 delegates debated this for two days at an online party conference - from the balcony, from the garden at home or from the living room with dark curtains to protect against the heat.

For leftists, the event remained peaceful - by necessity.

In the end, a solid majority voted for the joint election program.

Dark clouds over the party congress

Thick storm clouds had been brewing over the party congress: The left is bobbing dangerously close to the five percent hurdle in the polls with six to seven percent. In the east, where it is traditionally strong, there were last heavy losses in the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt. And once again in the past few weeks there has been a dispute about the right course, fueled by the current bestseller from party celebrity Sahra Wagenknecht "The Self-Righteous", in which she accuses left parties of debates on gender, climate and organic food Alienating core voters.

And then there was the excitement about Wagenknecht's husband, Oskar Lafontaine, Left Party co-founder and parliamentary group leader in the Saarland state parliament.

He had said about the top candidate of the Saar left for the Bundestag election, Thomas Lutze, with whom he had long crossed paths: “Candidate Lutze cannot be supported.” This was interpreted as a call not to vote for the left and it was vehement Triggered criticism in the party.

Dispute defused for the time being

But despite the dark clouds, there was no thunderstorm at the party this weekend. The common fear of failing the five percent hurdle caused the permanently stressed left to pull together. Wagenknecht was always an indirect or direct topic in the debate, but there was no real trouble. Classic issues such as the question of whether the left should not move away from their categorical no to Bundeswehr missions abroad were only touched on briefly. Nothing was changed in the course.

And Lafontaine adopted a conciliatory tone. Party leader Susanne Hennig-Wellsow had prepared: “I was with Oskar yesterday, out of the deep conviction (...) that we have to talk to each other. We don't have that big differences, "she said on Saturday in her speech, in which she almost pleaded for unity:" I can promise you one thing: We won't go down, (...) because we stick together, because we're closed are."

Lafontaine joined the appeals: "We must make every effort to get back into the Bundestag," he told the editorial network Germany (RND).

“There is great agreement on this.

The left is the only force that votes against war missions and social cuts. ”The disputes in the Saarland regional association are“ a special case ”that has nothing to do with the left as a whole.

It is wrong to claim that he has called for the left not to vote.

"We are the Robin Hood Party"

At the party congress, the left was now about to redirect attention to its issues: ambitious climate protection goals and redistribution policy.

The party wants to tax high incomes, assets and companies more heavily, and "finally ask the super-rich to pay up" in order to pay for investments in climate protection, education, infrastructure and the health system.

"We think that's socially fair," said top candidate and co-party leader Janine Wissler.

It is about "redistribution from top to bottom".

For this, the left put on a new nickname at the weekend: "We are the Robin Hood Party", it was said by representatives of the Bundestag faction, based on the English legendary hero who took the rich and gave to the poor.

"Drinking Little Red Riding Hood is a matter of class"

But even a Robin Hood party treats itself to a bit of luxury: At the generally quite tame party congress, after hours of deliberations on Saturday evening, a tingling mood suddenly emerged again: the left decided with a clear majority at the request of their youth organization "solid" to support to use the abolition of the champagne tax This was introduced in 1902 to finance the imperial navy and was never abolished again.

"First the corks popped, then the cannons", the tax is not only a symbol of militarism, "but also essentially an attack on the free, self-determined life that is hostile to pleasure," said "solid" representative Michael Neuhaus in a celebrated speech.

“Drinking champagne is like golfing or as I've always said: Drinking Red Riding Hood is a question of class.

As leftists, we can no longer accept that. "

It remains to be seen whether the corks will pop on the left after the general election.

The only possible constellation in which they could co-rule - with the Greens and the SPD - is currently again relatively far from a majority in surveys.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210620-99-70182 / 4