According to the protection of the Constitution, the Left Party, which is partly extremist, is preparing for a government coalition with the SPD and the Greens in view of the good poll results.

“The window is as wide open as never before.

When, if not now? “, Said the party chairman Susanne Hennig-Wellsow of the FAS. The parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, Amira Mohamed Ali, sees a special moment coming.

“This is now a real possibility again, and of course it is being talked about in my party,” she told the FAS.

CDU / CSU and FDP together come to 32 to 33 percent.

Justus Bender

Editor in politics of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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Within the party, negotiators are already being sought among the left to write position papers and to discuss specialist issues with the SPD and the Greens after the federal election. It is "the first time in the history of the party" that the left is preparing so seriously for explorations, said Hennig-Wellsow. According to information from the FAS, there were two meetings between the party leaders of the SPD and the Left Party before the start of the election campaign in early summer. In the Left Party, such meetings are considered common and unspectacular. There they strengthen the impression that red-green-red would be easier to imagine for the SPD chairman than for the candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz. "The question of a coalition will be decided afterwards by the party leaders," said deputy left-wing leader Martina Renner.When asked, the SPD did not say whether the meetings had taken place or what purpose they had.

"The shop behind it wants"

Left-wing MP Stefan Liebich has been meeting with MPs from the SPD and the Greens for years, the circle was sometimes called the “Oslo Group” because red-green-red once ruled Norway.

Mohamed Ali is also in contact with SPD members.

"As far as I know, a relevant part of the SPD parliamentary group is very open to red-green-red," she said.

The calculation in the Left Party is that Scholz could be forced by his party after the election to agree to Red-Green-Red, even if he has personal reservations.

The Chancellor candidate of the Greens, Annalena Baerbock, is assessed similarly.

“I'm not sure whether Scholz and Baerbock have an interest in governing with the left.

But I know both of them that the shop behind them already wants, ”said Hennig-Wellsow.

NATO does not appear in the "immediate program"

On Monday, the top candidates of the left, Janine Wissler and Dietmar Bartsch, presented a kind of government program that contains clues for possible coalition negotiations. Outwardly, according to Hennig-Wellsow, the paper should show: “We have a plan, we know how to do it, we are prepared and you can count on us.” And internally: “Now it's getting serious. But you don't have to worry, we have that under control. ”In the“ immediate program ”that the FAS has at hand, it says:“ Many people are in favor of majorities without the Union and the FDP. ”Above all, the left wants the minimum wage increase, abolish Hartz IV, increase pensions, introduce basic child benefits and a nationwide rent cap. There are only two paragraphs on foreign policy in the eight-page paper. The party wants to end foreign missions,Stop arms exports and keep the defense budget at the 2018 level. NATO is no longer mentioned in this "immediate program", although the electoral program calls for its dissolution.

Scholz recently tied conditions to a coalition with the left, such as the party's commitment to the EU and NATO. The Bremen Left MP Maja Tegeler, who sits on the federal executive board of her party, sees a possibility of compromise: "If we do not agree on the maximum demand to leave NATO, but at least make a reorientation in foreign policy and cut armaments spending significantly, then see I have a good chance. "Daphne Weber from the party executive believes that there can be no coalition without disarmament:" You can't be fobbed off with something. " Would agree to NATO treaty. “I think that's a red line,” said Schulz."We will not agree to war participation," said Weber.

In coalition negotiations, the Left Party would require at least two ministries, such as the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and a department such as health or education. The will to govern among the left is portrayed differently. Hennig-Wellsow said it was 98 percent for government, so for red-green-red. “That's my estimate.” An internal party poll had shown a value of around eighty percent.

Weber from the party executive said that there are skeptics among the left-wing movement within the party, "whether a change of policy with Cum-Ex-Scholz or the Greens who are ensnaring the CDU can go." In the youth of the party, the SPD chancellor candidate is nicknamed "Emetic Scholz" because, as a Senator for the Interior in Hamburg, he once approved that drug dealers should be forced to use emetics to disclose drugs they had swallowed. One dealer died. The police operation around the G20 summit in Hamburg 2017 is resented by him. "Of course we have a problem with the person Olaf Scholz and his political orientation and past," said party executive Tegeler. "But we experience that there are completely different orientations in the SPD."