The situation for DIE LINKE is better than it appears. The traffic light coalition offers many targets for attack. The FDP emerged victorious from the coalition negotiations. I find it outrageous that the SPD and the Greens agreed not to tax the wealthy in our country more heavily. Those in government do not want to say who should actually pay for the pandemic and climate crisis. I assume that the costs of the crisis should be paid primarily by those who bear the least responsibility for these crises.
We want to win over these people. It’s about the majority of our society. We can win them if we represent our politics with more self-confidence.
The Left Party is in crisis. Leading figures of the party write in a series of guest contributions Fridaywhat needs to change now. Here the deputy chairwoman of the left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Gesine Lötzsch, expresses herself
Once Augsburg in Berlin
My constituency is in Lichtenberg in the eastern part of Berlin. About as many people live here as in Augsburg. Lichtenberg is a big city. More and more people who can no longer afford the absurd rents in the city center are moving to Hohenschönhausen, the district in the north of the district. More and more people who can afford condominiums or city villas are moving to Karlshorst in the south – also known as the “Zehlendorf of the East”. Among them also voters of my party. We have a strong north-south wealth gap in Berlin-Lichtenberg.
I won this Bundestag constituency six times in a row. Lichtenberg has always been a stronghold of the PDS and later of DIE LINKE. The district has developed dynamically since the 1990s. I like living in Lichtenberg and don’t want to leave. I have a nice apartment in a prefabricated building in a well-run cooperative. Rent is affordable here, even for people with low incomes. In my district there is a wonderful animal park, a large children’s and youth theater and many artists who have come to us from all corners and corners and draw attention to themselves and their art with great exhibitions.
There is hardly a problem in Lichtenberg that does not exist in the Federal Republic. We have a very high proportion of single parents and therefore many children who grow up in poverty. People from almost all nations live with us. We took in an above-average number of refugees. I experienced a lot of solidarity there, but also a lot of hate.
If you want to win a direct mandate for the Bundestag, you have to be able to listen to people who have a completely different opinion and you have to speak a language that people understand.
People want respect, not arguments
I keep finding that within our party, problems are discussed in such a differentiated way that people who spend maybe five minutes a day dealing with politics can no longer and do not want to understand our discussion. When there is disrespectful argument about comrades, most citizens turn away. It’s often said that people don’t want arguments. I think what they want most of all is to be treated with respect. Many people find disrespect in arguments uncomfortable.
The more complex the problems become, the more important the credibility of individual politicians is to people. Actually, every politician should fight for a direct mandate. In this way, a political expanse opens up, which is urgently needed in order not to remain in political niches.
I’m a budget politician, but I don’t call myself a specialist MP. Of course, every parliamentary group needs expert knowledge. My goal is not to know all the details from the Treasury Department. My aim is to address the issues that make it clear what political goals I am pursuing. I control the budget for “Labour and Social Affairs” and the budget for “Defense”. So it’s about social and peace policy – our core issues.
There is a risk of an unhealthy division of labor in Parliament, which would then lead to misjudgments. Of course there are hardly any generalists in our complex world. But the division of labor must not lead to an unlimited transfer of responsibility.
We must ask ourselves this question
When the Erfurt program of the DIE LINKE party was adopted in 2011, there were around 400 amendments. This is not unusual, but rather the rule. As party leader at the time, I asked myself whether we also had 400 ideas on how to implement our program? We didn’t have that. We are convinced that our programs are good and correct. But we have to ask ourselves why the poll numbers are the way they are.
Most people are very pragmatic. They want to know if what we propose will work. If they are not convinced, then they will not choose us.
We must aim to not only critically follow the prevailing politics, but to want to change them. That can be achieved in opposition and government responsibility. Yes, even in the opposition you have a responsibility and can change society.
My motto is always the same: “Things work better with solidarity”. Unfortunately, the old federal government did not rely on solidarity during the pandemic, but on the market. Even before the pandemic, the healthcare system was subject to the rules of the capital market. Now we see that you can’t run hospitals like screw factories.
DIE LINKE must make solidarity in our society strong again, and to do this it must act in solidarity itself.