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The Left Party of all people has developed something like a corps spirit.

No dispute, no public power struggle has broken out in recent weeks over the question of the top candidate for the federal election.

Not even bad words were uttered.

Although the proposal of the two left chairmen still has to be approved by the party executive on Monday - rejections are hardly to be expected.

It is likely that party leader Janine Wissler and parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch will lead the left into the election campaign.

Officially it is said that the decision has not yet been made.

Bartsch and Wissler would be a clear signal to the SPD and the Greens that the left is ready to govern.

As a reformer, Bartsch stands for pragmatic politics anyway.

Wissler has been cautious in the past, but supports the course of her co-party chairman Susanne Hennig-Wellsow, which is focused on government participation.

Co-boss Susanne Hennig-Wellsow was already the power architect in the background in Thuringia - this role now also falls to her in the federal government

Source: Getty Images / Pool

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The fact that Hennig-Wellsow missed out on the top candidacy has more to do with internal considerations and should not be understood as a rejection of her course in the direction of green-red-red: Bartsch and she would both have stood for the pragmatic East-Left, in such a way The candidate duo would have lacked diversity - and Hennig-Wellsow has already had two completely screwed up public appearances in her short tenure as party leader.

The party leadership wants to prevent a dispute

It is true that the likely top candidate, Wissler, as a Trotskyist and former member of the Marx 21 group observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, is undoubtedly left-wing and, from a conservative point of view, downright radical. But the left in the parliamentary group, for example, do not see it as a “real” left. The fact that Wissler, as chairman of the parliamentary group in the Hessian state parliament, made pragmatic real politics in the past and supported Hennig-Wellsow's government efforts, serve as evidence.

The Wissler personality shows how intertwined the tangle of inner-party currents and groups has become.

The numerous lines of conflict are considered to be direct to the outside world, and attempts are made to sell the mess as “strength through diversity”.

However, this so-called diversity harbors endless potential for conflict.

However, the party leadership wants to prevent controversy.

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The question of the political future of the far left chairman of the Bundestag faction, Amira Mohamed Ali, delayed the free choice of the top candidates.

What would become of the leadership figure of the left wing if the moderate Wissler wants to reach for the parliamentary group chairmanship after the election?

This would be tantamount to disempowering the left wing, which is visibly weakened in the party but still powerful in the parliamentary group.

It is therefore conceivable that Wissler will break with tradition and not lay claim to the chairmanship of the parliamentary group.

This scenario would fit the party's new need for harmony, which is primarily based on increasing nervousness.

Much is at stake for the party.

In the federal election in September, anything seems possible: from leaving parliament to participating in government.

The party is driven by the pressure not to screw up this starting position.

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On the one hand, the left sees the end of the Angela Merkel (CDU) era as an opportunity window for a policy change. The change in mood that the comrades have been hoping for for months has also occurred. Only the left does not benefit from it. Most recently, it was bobbing at a low of six percent in surveys, internally the specter of the five percent hurdle is present. In the 2017 federal election, the party achieved 9.2 percent. A two-digit result is given as the goal. But just preventing further losses would be a success.

On the other hand, the party prevents the trauma of past disputes from developing further. Because of the sheer fear of dismantling in public and thus driving out voters, fundamental decisions are avoided. And so the left moves into the election campaign without having clarified its position in the core areas.

Does the party remain uncompromising on the question of German missions abroad - or is it prepared to differentiate between different missions by the Bundeswehr? Can it bring itself to clear condemnations of human rights violations in Russia or China - or does it continue to advocate a foreign and security policy based on old bloc thinking? Does she want to reach young, urban and migrant voters with identity politics - or does she want to turn against “political correctness” and thus offer an alternative to the AfD?

The left has failed to develop a clear profile. Paradoxically, the fear of dispute driving out voters keeps new voters away. The party is therefore going into the election campaign with an "in between mode". The aim is to address virtually everyone who experiences injustice in any way - whether objectively or subjectively, whether economically or on the basis of their identity. The hoped-for electorate is so broad that one might think that the left considers itself to be a people's party.

This dilemma of unresolved questions and avoiding conflict four and a half months before the election can hardly be resolved.

It is too late to fight out and enforce directional decisions.

So it remains with the unconditional preservation of inner peace.

The position that one has to govern in order not to slip into insignificance is a majority in the party.

Hennig-Wellsow, who appears awkward in public, has a role that she already filled in Thuringia and in which she was successful: the power architect in the background, who helped Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow into office twice.

Behind the scenes, she will forge internal and non-party alliances, mark out negotiating corridors and prepare coalition talks.

Because the left is definitely compatible with the Greens and the SPD.

According to reports, there is a regular exchange between the left-wing leaders and the chairmen of the Social Democrats Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans.

More than 30 politicians from the three parties spoke out in favor of an alliance in a book entitled “Allied you!” In March - including not only well-known left-wing politicians such as Bartsch or Jan Korte.

SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich and Deputy Green Chairwoman Jamila Schäfer can also be found among the authors.

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Despite all the differences, the Left Party would be a partner, especially when it comes to financial policy, which, in contrast to the FDP and the Union, would enable the Greens to implement their own program. Because that is based on a hefty investment program of more than 500 billion euros. Suspending the debt brake or a wealth tax, as the Greens are considering, corresponds to the left line.

That the election result could make such a constellation possible is more than a left-wing daydream. Since Annalena Baerbock's free choice for Green Chancellor candidate, the polls have consistently seen a narrow majority for Green-Red-Red. But then, of all things, it would come to an acid test for the left. In order to be considered as partners for the SPD and the Greens as a partner in addition to the equally possible black-green options and a traffic light coalition, they would have to make far-reaching concessions. At that moment it would also become apparent how far the newly developed corps spirit carries.