Böttger and Lange confirmed as state leaders of the Left Party

Janina Böttger and Hendrik Lange remain state chairmen of the Left Party in Saxony-Anhalt. Both were re-elected at a state party conference in Magdeburg.

The 42-year-olds received 69.8 percent approval. 81 delegates voted yes, 17 no, and there were 18 abstentions. Incumbent Hendrik Lange and the previous deputy head Alexander Sorge competed for second place at the top. 62 delegates voted for Lange, 44 for Sorge. There were 11 discussions, one vote was invalid.

From Böttger’s point of view, the Left should provide concrete solutions to questions of social justice in order to get out of the slump. “Giving up is not an option,” she said. In a time of crisis, the party distribution issues and social justice should be given greater priority. We are fighting for people who are disadvantaged in terms of power, income and influence: the unemployed, pensioners, single parents. We must reach out to older people and rural areas again. It is about public services, education, health care and mobility. The Left must prove that they are needed.

Lange stressed that the Left must be clearly recognizable. He repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire and negotiations in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. “War is the enemy of the world. No war anywhere – that remains our core brand.” The Left is the peace party in Germany.

Lange also emphasized the global challenge of climate change. But solutions must also be offered to commuters in rural areas. He does not believe in discussions within the party that focus only on major cities. “We need rural areas.”

Sorge, on the other hand, criticized the work of the state executive committee. He said he had repeatedly pointed out that it was not going well. A new type of communication was needed, and the changes required courage. After his contested candidacy, Sorge did not apply again for the post of deputy state chairman.

By deciding on a popular initiative, the Left Party has emphasized its demand to retain all existing primary schools. Education Minister Eva Feußner’s (CDU) plan is the worst draft law he has seen in the past 30 years, said education politician Thomas Lippmann. The CDU in the state is “the party of school closures par excellence.”

The draft from the Ministry of Education proposes that the minimum number of pupils for first grades at primary schools and for classes at secondary schools should be increased to 25. For primary and secondary schools outside of middle and upper towns, the minimum number of pupils should be 20. However, this has not yet been decided.

The aim of the people’s initiative is to achieve a change in the school law. 30,000 valid signatures are to be collected, after which the issue could be discussed in the state parliament. However, there were also critical voices from the district associations at the party conference. Some members do not trust the party to implement the project in terms of personnel and organization at the moment.

The delegates sent a signal to the federal party by supporting Ines Schwerdtner’s candidacy as federal chairwoman. The journalist said that the reorganization of the Left would be a process that would take years. “The house is burning.” The reorganization was a joint task of the members. This would not be a sprint, but a marathon, she stressed.

Schwerdtner was born in Werdau, Saxony, in 1989. In the European elections, she was fifth on the Left Party’s list, but failed to enter parliament. She works as a freelance journalist and publicist and is organized in the Anhalt-Bitterfeld district association.

Schwerdtner is calling for a new political culture in the party. It is about living “revolutionary friendliness” and solidarity, she stressed. The federal party conference in Halle in October should go down in history as the party conference at which the party managed to turn things around.

The previous federal chairmen Janine Wissler and Martin Schirdewan have announced their resignation. In addition to Schwerdtner, former Bundestag member Jan van Aken has thrown his hat into the ring.

The Left has suffered a series of electoral defeats; in 2021 it only got into the Bundestag via a special rule with three direct mandates. In the European elections in June, the Left received only 2.7 percent of the vote nationwide, and in Saxony-Anhalt it received 4.8 percent.

According to its own information, the Left had exactly 2,492 members in Saxony-Anhalt as of August 15, 2024; ten years ago, there were more than 4,000.