Left criticizes traffic lights and calls for new elections: hopes in the East

The Left wants to stop the widening of the social divide: with an increase in the minimum wage, skimming off the super-rich – and new elections.

Berlin – The chairmen of the Left Party proclaim the revolution, wrote the taz: “Revolution for Justice and Democracy” was the headline above the strategy paper with suggestions on how the left can redefine its role to win back voters and members. That was 2016.

At the start of 2024, the party is in worse shape than ever before; and acts combative again. “I believe that the traffic light has actually become politically ineffective and that this is becoming more and more clear with every survey and that of course there are consequences,” said party leader Martin Schirdewan on Friday (January 12th) in Berlin. Like those too CDU The Left is calling for early elections to the Bundestag this year.

After the wing around MP Sahra Wagenknecht split off, the successor organization to the PDS is still represented in the Bundestag with 28 MPs and, with poll numbers of around four percent, is currently worried about re-entry in new elections. This results in the current “Sunday question” from infratest-dimap. Schirdewan and his co-chair Janine Wissler At the start of the year, they presented a paper with their already known core goals, including a wealth levy and stronger taxation of very high assets and so-called excess profits as well as abolishing the debt brake. This should enable investments and avert cuts in the federal budget. “Nobody needs billionaires,” says the paper first reported by this Editorial network Germany reported.

Demand: increase in the minimum wage, price caps for food and energy

At its party conference in November, the party tried to find a new direction: As a “left for all”, as party leader Martin Schirdewan put it, the party wants voters in the European elections and the three state elections in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia in 2024 win back. As in the program for the 2021 federal election, the party is fighting what it sees as the growing social divide in the country.

The current strategy paper includes the demand for a minimum wage of 15 euros – instead of the current 12.41 euros -, a price freeze for basic foods and a price cap for electricity and heating. Climate money of 200 euros per month for all people with a gross income of up to 4,000 euros is intended to offset the additional costs of the rising CO2 price. The traffic light austerity policy is leading to a “social catastrophe,” says Schirdewan. “They are stepping on the gas in the dead end,” he criticizes. The taz sees this brisk start to the year as an “attack on the super-rich,” as she writes.

Goal: Replacing the traffic light government through early elections

The Left is in agreement with the bourgeois opposition in its criticism of the traffic lights: CDU leader Friedrich Merz had pushed for a rapid change to a Union-led federal government in view of the budget shortfall. He and CSU leader Markus Söder “agreed that we want to replace this government as quickly as possible,” said the chairman of the largest opposition faction in the Bundestag German press agency. If the traffic light fails, he would consider an early federal election on June 9th, the day of the European elections.

The coalition parties SPD, Greens and FDP are currently polling at just over 30 percent, but they have a clear majority of seats in the Bundestag. As things stand, the CDU/CSU and AfD are far ahead. New elections would be possible, would Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) ask the question of trust. Three SPD chancellors had already done this: Willy Brandt (1972), Helmut Schmidt (1982) and Gerhard Schröder (2001 and 2005). If the majority of MPs spoke out against Scholz, Scholz could suggest to the Federal President that the Bundestag be dissolved. The Federal President would then also have to agree to the new elections; these would then
have to be held within 60 days.

For the left, however, this is a thing of the future. The left-wing faction in the Bundestag dissolved on December 6, 2023. Group leader Dietmar Bartsch said that group status for the Left MPs should be applied for as quickly as possible. Bartsch sees the dissolution of the Left parliamentary group as an opportunity for the Left Party. He said im ZDF morning magazine, the left is not dead. But it is up to it to achieve a change, which is what it is trying to do now. The background to the dissolution was the resignation of Sahra Wagenknecht and nine other MPs from the party. As a result, the Left had lost the minimum size for a parliamentary group with 28 remaining members. As a parliamentary group, the left would have fewer rights and money. Parliamentary influence is declining.

Plan: Become the top dog in the East and appeal to new voters

The Left had lost votes in the last federal election campaign at the latest due to the SPD's shift to the left due to the increase in the minimum wage and the attractiveness of the Greens in urban areas; The Greens had gained ground on the Left over the issue of migration. Jan Emendörfer believes that the Left has probably failed in its claim to be a party for everyone Editorial network Germany: “A party that represents everything – from social justice to climate protection and sea rescue for refugees to asylum law, as it currently still exists – appeals to very different voter interests in East and West, which may be difficult to reconcile .”

The demand for new elections sounds just as inconsistent, which is what a look at the party program reveals: The party wants to be fit for a new start in two years. New elections this year would come far too early for a party that still seems to be looking for its new brand message – and is even threatening to intensify its spiraling course, as became clear at the European Party conference in Augsburg, as the former parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch spoke of the East of the Republic as the “heart chamber” of the party. “Our East German origins are a big plus, and we have to represent the interests of East Germans in a special way. We have neglected this in recent years,” Bartsch told journalists.

This statement is piquant in light of the three state elections this year in Thuringia and Saxony on September 1st, and Brandenburg on September 22nd. According to one of the Mirror In the survey commissioned in December 2023, the AfD could score significantly in the East: “The pollsters' evaluation supports the observation that the AfD has reached the 30 percent mark in all new states and thus clearly has the highest shares among the parties united. So far, the AfD has never managed to become the strongest force in a state election. This could change in September 2024.”

Criticism: The left in the Bundestag leaves no gap

The Left increasingly wants to win over people from trade unions, social movements and initiatives, associations, churches, socially committed people, artists, workers and employees. She wants to implement three core demands.

The debt brake is a thorn in the side of the left and should be removed from the Basic Law; For the current year, too, instead of incurring less debt, it wants to invest, for example, in expanding infrastructure, cushioning the consequences of the Ukraine war and inflation and subsidizing energy. She wants to raise money from the country's super-rich through a wealth levy. To this end, the Left is calling for a “one-off, progressive” levy “on assets of more than two million euros”. It will be levied once and, according to the party's calculations, could bring in more than 300 billion euros. She is also fighting for a minimum wage of 15 euros.