Germany's socialist Left party attempts a fresh start

The Left party is struggling in the polls. A few months before Germany's national election, the socialists hope a new leadership duo will give them fresh momentum.

Germany's socialists have had a hard time making themselves heard during the coronavirus pandemic, yet some of their ideas have become mainstream. The coronavirus has forced Angela Merkel's government to make "big government" interventions, casting aside its commitment to a balanced budget to take on new debt and offer huge bailouts to hard-hit sectors of the economy.

And yet opinion polls have the Left party in fifth place, at 7% or 8%. One recent Deutschlandtrend poll saw the party as low as 6%, hovering precariously above the 5% hurdle it needs to clear to re-enter the Bundestag this September.

So it's time for new blood, and at this weekend's virtual party conference the Left party has elected two new leaders to replace Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger, who have led the party since 2012.

Susanne Hennig-Wellsow and Janine Wissler have been voted in as the Left's new co-leaders during the online conference, and are expected to be confirmed by the party's rank and file.

At the two-day conference Hennig- Wellsow, an overtly mainstream figure, spoke out in support of joining the center-left at the national level after this year's general election. "Whether the new government can be a red-red-green coalition is up to us," said the 43-year-old, in reference to a coalition of SPD,

Greens and the Left.

Her counterpart, the 39-yearold Wissler, describes herself as a Marxist and is considered a member of the more left-wing side of the party. She is keen to introduce more ecological issues into the party program, but is skeptical of the prospect of an easy coalition with the Greens and SPD. "Government is not an

end in itself," she recently told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.

Janine Wissler (right) and Susanne Hennig-Wellsow are the new Left party leaders