Just two dozen interested parties have gathered in front of the Left Party grandstand on the Gelsenkirchen station forecourt when Dietmar Bartsch steps up to the microphone.

So that it doesn't remain so sad, the chairman of the left-wing faction in the Bundestag enlarges his audience without further ado.

"Listen carefully," Bartsch calls out to the guests in the outdoor seating areas of the surrounding cafés.

"It's worth it, you see: the sun is shining, the sky is smiling - that's what the Left Party did." Not a hint of a smile can be found on Bartsch's face.

A few hours ago, co-party leader Susanne Hennig-Wellsow resigned because of the sexism affair, among other things.

The party is in an existential crisis.

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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On May 15, the Left Party, led by top candidate Carolin Butterwegge, finally wants to return to the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament after ten years.

Bartsch later admits, surprisingly openly, that this is unlikely.

"I know that there is currently no tailwind from the federal level," he says.

Nevertheless, you can "create the sensation in NRW, there are still a few weeks to go," Bartsch calls out to the people.

The left will become the “social corrective” in the state parliament.

The left has its largest state association in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Sahra Wagenknecht, the party's most prominent and at the same time most controversial politician, has her Bundestag constituency in Düsseldorf.

However, the North Rhine-Westphalian Left never became a stable power in the Federal Left.

The odds seemed good for that.

In May 2010, the party achieved 5.6 percent and celebrated this as its breakthrough to the all-German left.

But in the new elections in 2012, it fell to 2.5 percent.

Just missed moving in 2017 - "That was bitter"

The left in North Rhine-Westphalia played a certain power-political role twice.

When there was no clear majority after the 2010 state elections, and Hannelore Kraft (SPD) finally formed a red-green minority government after some back and forth, the left proved itself to be a de facto tolerating partner for twenty months.

Curiously, five years ago it was the Left Party that perfected the black and yellow swing.

Her trick was to double her result (at the expense of the SPD) compared to 2012, while staying just under the five percent hurdle.

This is the only reason why the CDU and FDP have had the absolute majority of seats in the state parliament since then.

"4.99 percent, so close to moving in, that was really bitter," says top candidate Butterwegge on the station forecourt in Gelsenkirchen.

The left makes the difference

the social researcher, who did her doctorate with a thesis on the poverty of children with a migration background, promises that the topic of justice will be carried into all fields of state politics.

No wonder that the left is trying to focus on the issue of child poverty and is focusing its campaign on the Ruhr area, where a particularly large number of children have to live in poverty.