Despite severe crises and poor election results, Janine Wissler wants to remain left party leader. She will run again at the party conference at the end of June, she told the “ARD capital studio”.

After the resignation of her former co-chair Susanne Hennig-Wellsow, Linke leader Janine Wissler wants to run again at the party conference at the end of June and remain party leader, as she told the “ARD capital studio” on Saturday. The statute of the party provides for a dual leadership.

The left is in a serious crisis. Since Wissler and Hennig-Wellsow took office in February 2021, the party has almost exclusively experienced defeats: in the federal election, the left failed at the 5 percent hurdle and only managed to get into parliament through direct mandates. In the most recent state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, they failed to get into parliament after significant losses.

In addition, there had been quarrels in the party in the past few weeks, among other things, about Ukraine policy. Allegations of sexism in the party, with which former co-chairman Hennig-Wellsow justified her resignation, also caused stress.