Luigi Pantisano, a member of the Bundestag, succeeds Jan van Aken, who did not run again for health reasons. The 46-year-old, running unopposed, received only just over 53 percent of the delegate votes – falling well short of his target of more than 70 percent. Schwerdtner, by contrast, was confirmed in office with nearly 86 percent, a very good result for the Left party.
Pantisano announced that he would sharpen the party’s profile. In an introductory speech, he said he tries to polarize. In a video interview with the Bild newspaper, he stated that there is “no difference between the CDU, which pursues fascist policies, the AfD, or the fascists themselves.” When asked by the German Press Agency (dpa), he qualified the statement: “That is an oversimplification. The point is that parties like the CDU adopt the wrong policies of the AfD and thereby strengthen them.”
The new party leadership plans to systematically mobilize protests against the government’s social reforms and higher defense spending in the coming weeks. An emergency motion at the party congress stated: “We are organizing the uprising: against welfare cuts and militarization.” The Left party is thus drawing on the protests against the Agenda 2010 reforms of the red-green government under Gerhard Schröder, which boosted the former PDS and the WASG.
Source: Stadt München
