Melanie Wery-Sims, state chairwoman of the Left Party in Rhineland-Palatinate, has left the party and settles accounts with chairwoman Janine Wissler in particular. There is “ugly hostility” in the party, and she also criticizes the way sexualized assaults are dealt with, as well as the party’s attitude towards Russia.
Nine months after her election as state chairwoman of the Left Party in Rhineland-Palatinate, Melanie Wery-Sims has declared her withdrawal from the party. “Meanwhile, I no longer stand behind too much of our program,” said the 38-year-old on Twitter on Monday. In addition, the left is “far too much about inner-party trench warfare”. In a longer statement on Facebook, she criticized the “ugly arguments and hostilities” within the party. She also noticed “how little courage and backbone some have in the top posts.”
Wery-Sims mentions the internal party discussions about sexism and sexualized assaults in the Hessian state association. Party leader Janine Wissler was in a leading position at the association at the time. “So a special district chairman can probably continue to call my photos on Facebook jerk off templates, call another comrade disabled (to use the word as an insult at all is an absurdity) and insult and threaten employees,” says the Wery-Sims with her former party to court.
She also criticizes the party’s attitude towards Russia and comments on her candidacy for federal treasurer of the Left Party, which failed at the party conference in June. She had heard from the party ranks that, as state chairwoman, she also had to represent “Putin understands”. But that would go against all their principles, according to Wery-Sims. Before the party congress, Wissler, who is also a member of parliament herself, is said to have tried to dissuade her from running, Wery-Sims reveals on Facebook. Wissler is said to have told her “in no uncertain terms” that she did not see Wery-Sims in the position. The reason Wissler gave was that she had to move to Berlin with her children. “In addition, I could not be paid for the office, since everyone now has to cut back financially (from the mouth of a member of the Bundestag, that’s actually real satire),” says Wery-Sims. Wissler denied this to “Spiegel” and said that she had supported another candidate, which she also told Wery-Sims.
The politician from the Bernkastel-Wittlich district was elected chair at a state party conference at the end of October last year, together with Stefan Glander from Kaiserslautern. In the federal election, the Rhineland-Palatinate left had fallen back to its worst state result of 3.3 percent. As early as March 2021, she again missed entering the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament with 2.5 percent, at that time with Wery-Sims as the top candidate.