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Photo: Martin Schutt / picture alliance / dpa
The old leader is also the new one: Janine Wissler was re-elected party leader at the Left Party Congress.
319 delegates (57.5 percent of the votes) voted for the 41-year-old in Erfurt.
Her challenger Heidi Reichinnek received 199 votes (35.8 percent), the third candidate for the post, Julia Bonk, received 14 votes (2.5 percent).
23 delegates (4.2) abstained.
Wissler was first elected in February 2021 and had only been in office for a year and a half.
After a delayed MeToo discussion and catastrophic election results, she was considered ailing before the party congress.
The parliamentary group leadership, which is opposed to Wissler, had therefore brought Reichinnek, a member of the Bundestag from Lower Saxony and spokeswoman for the parliamentary group on women's affairs, into play as an opponent.
Wissler's victory is now also seen as a clear win for the party establishment.
In their speeches, Wissler and Reichinnek had sworn to party unity.
»The political opponent is not inside the party, but outside it.
We need more team, less I-AG,” said Wissler.
Reichinnek also emphasized that the strategy of some leftists to attack people on a personal level must stop.
At the same time, she had distributed tips against the party leader.
She wanted to do more than "just knock on a few front doors."
The party's public relations work must be significantly revised.
Wissler had previously emphasized that the left had to start talking more directly to potential voters.
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