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Group leaders Mohamed Ali, Bartsch: "Again being the address for social issues"
Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa
The left has to sharpen its profile and get back to its core.
This is what the re-elected parliamentary group chairmen Amira Mohamed Ali and Dietmar Bartsch demand in a strategy paper that they presented at the closed conference in Leipzig.
The taz was the first to report on the paper;
it is also available to SPIEGEL.
It says there was a devastating gap between support for the left and support for the party.
It must become clearer again "what the priorities of our policy are and for whom we stand up".
In the state elections in the coming year, the left must be "again the address for social issues."
Specifically, the parliamentary group leaders name five subject areas in the paper that should be at the center of the politics of the left parliamentary group in the future:
Social Security
Tax justice
Effective climate policy
Everyday problems of the citizens
Consistent peace policy
In the section on everyday problems, Bartsch and Mohamed Ali write that the Bundestag parliamentary group wants to win back the trust of citizens, especially in East Germany. 38 percent of East Germans are of the opinion that the left represents East German interests. "This best value among all parties must again lead to significantly more real voter approval." That is why one sets a focus on the East.
It is interesting which aspects do not even appear in the paper: anti-racism, equality, diversity or migration, for example.
These issues had given rise to controversy within the party in the past.
For example, Sahra Wagenknecht, who was controversial within the party, alleged that the left had neglected the interests of the workers and placed too much emphasis on issues of the "lifestyle left", such as dealing with gender issues.
The left only got 4.9 percent of the vote in the federal election - a massive loss compared to 2017 (9.2 percent).
It is only thanks to three direct mandates that the party is still represented as a parliamentary group, but only with 39 instead of the previous 69 members.
anr / ulz / til