Germany: The Socialist Left Party elects new leaders
Journalist Ines Schwerdtner and former MP Jan van Aken have been chosen to lead the party in next year’s elections. The Left Party has been rocked by the departure of a leading figure and the drop in voter support, according to DW.
Journalist Ines Schwerdtner and former MP Jan van Aken have been chosen to lead the party in next year’s elections. The Left Party has been rocked by the departure of a leading figure and the drop in voter support.
Ines Schwerdtner and Jan van Aken were elected by members of the left at a party conference in:
HalleImage
Germany’s Left Party announced two new leaders on Saturday: journalist Ines Schwerdtner and former deputy Jan van Aken. French The couple was elected by members of the post-communist party at a national conference in the eastern city of Halle.
Schwerdtner received 79.8% of the votes, while van Aken won 88%, local media reported.
The left-wing socialist party has struggled for survival in recent years due to the rise of the far right in its traditional stronghold of Germany’s eastern states. The far-right AfD could have overshadowed the left-wing party because of its hard-line anti-immigration stance, with the left-wing party also facing internal divisions.
One of the most prominent members of the left, Sahra Wagenknecht, resigned last year to form a new populist anti-immigration party in her own name: the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW). The BSW also has economic principles of the extreme left, but a more conservative approach to the issue of migration compared to the Left Party.
Wagenknecht took a large part of the parliamentary party with him, which caused the left to lose its official status in the Bundestag, the German lower house.
