After their crash in the federal elections, the left are at the stage of analysis and self-discovery.
A prominent comrade from Saxony is now putting her finger in open wounds - this is a painful process for the party.
Zwickau - Left-wing politician Sabine Zimmermann has accused her party of serious failures and thus justified the disastrous performance in the federal elections.
The Left received only 4.9 percent of the second votes nationwide on September 26th and is only represented again in parliament because it won three direct seats.
Zimmermann, who is a member of the Bundestag from Zwickau, told the German press agency that the left had left its two main areas of competence and tried unsuccessfully to win voters elsewhere.
Instead of presenting itself as a representative of East German interests and focusing on social issues, as in the past, priorities have been set in, for example, climate policy.
But this field is already occupied by the Greens, argued Zimmermann: "A voter migration is only conceivable here to a small extent, and it actually took place in the other direction, because in case of doubt you choose the original." Former top management with Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger was asked to put this topic even more in the foreground in the future, was a "barely comprehensible ignorance of the failure of this strategy".
"The left's too obvious squint for red-red-green, which was characterized by submissiveness and co-governing at all costs, has also damaged the left," said Zimmermann, who most recently headed the Bundestag committee on family, senior citizens, women and youth But no longer a member of the Bundestag.
Such an obvious ingratiation was not well received by the voters.
According to Zimmermann, the admission of many refugees and the skepticism and criticism about them, especially in East Germany, contributed decisively to the party's crisis.
The concerns of the people in the East were not taken seriously and “relatively undifferentiated with a policy of open borders”.
But many saw massive immigration by refugees as a threat to their social status.
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According to Zimmermann, the left must regain a strong profile of its own.
"This must not include wanting to be greener than the Greens or always offering oneself as a junior partner of the SPD." The party must again devote itself to a good labor market and social policy and be particularly sensitive to East German issues.
In addition, the public holding of discussions about direction must finally come to an end.
Kipping and Riexinger would not have moderated conflicts, "but rather essentially split the party themselves."
dpa
