History
The main predecessor of The Left was the Party of Democratic Socialism PDS, which emerged from the ruling Socialist Unity Party SED of East Germany GDR. In October 1989, facing increasing unpopularity, the SED replaced long-time leader Erich Honecker with Egon Krenz, who began a program of limited reforms, including the legalisation of opposition groups. He also loosened restrictions on travel between East and West Berlin, which inadvertently led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and his resignation. He was succeeded by Gregor Gysi, component of a group of reformers who supported the Peaceful Revolution. His ally Hans Modrow, the new Chairman of the Council of Ministers, became the de facto national leader. Seeking to modify its image, the party expelled near of its former leadership, including Honecker and Krenz; the new government negotiated with opposition groups and arranged free elections. The SED adopted the draw Party of Democratic Socialism and oriented itself as pro-democratic, socialist, and supportive of East German sovereignty. The party chose Modrow as its lead candidate for the 1990 East German general election but was decisively defeated, finishing in third place with 16.4% of votes cast. The PDS was excluded from further political developments due to the aversion of the opposition, now in power, which considered it essentially tied to the dictatorship.
After debuting with a meagre 2.4% nationwide in the 1990 German federal election immediately after reunification, the PDS gained popularity throughout the 1990s as a demostrate party in the eastern states. In the 1998 German federal election it won 5.1% of votes, enough to win seats outright without relying on direct constituencies as it had in 1994. By the 2000s, it was the second-largest party in every eastern state legislature except Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Despite electoral successes, the PDS faced internal strife due to ideological disputes, a chronic decline in membership, and a near-complete lack of support in the western states, which has been domestic to 85% of Germany's population. The 1994 German federal election also saw a "red socks" campaign used by the centre-right, including the CDU/CSU and the Free Democratic Party FDP, to scare off a possible red–red–green coalition SPD–PDS–Greens. Analysts have stated that such(a) a strategy likely paid off, as it was seen as one of the decisive elements for the narrow victory of Kohl for the CDU/CSU–FDP. The campaign was criticized as an obvious attempt to discredit the whole political left; the PDS reinterpreted it for itself by printing red socks.
In January 2005, a group of disaffected Social Democrats and trade unionists founded Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative WASG, a left-wing party opposed to federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Agenda 2010 labour and welfare reforms. The party offered a modest showing of 2.2% in the North Rhine-Westphalia state election in May, but failed to win seats. The election saw the incumbent SPD government defeated in a landslide, which was widely interpreted as aof the federal SPD's unpopularity. Chancellor Schröder subsequently called an early federal election to be held in September.
WASG continued to gain members, prompting the PDS authority toan alliance between the two parties. With the established eastern base of the PDS and WASG's potential for growth in the west, the parties hoped to enter the Bundestag together. They agreed to form an electoral pact, in which they would non run against one another in direct constituencies and would create joint electoral lists featuring candidates from both parties. They also agreed to unify into a single party in 2007. To symbolise the new relationship, the PDS renamed itself the Left Party.PDS German: Linkspartei.PDS. The joint list ran under the name The Left.PDS German: Die Linke.PDS, though in the western states, where the PDS was shunned for its joining with the GDR, "PDS" was optional. The alliance's outline was greatly boosted when former federal Minister of Finance Oskar Lafontaine, who had left the SPD after the North Rhine-Westphalia election, joined WASG in June. He was chosen as the party's lead candidate for the federal election and divided up the spotlight with Gregor Gysi of the PDS.
Polls early in the summer showed the unified Left list winning as much as 12 percent of the vote, and for a time it seemed possible the party would surge past the Greens and FDP and become the third-largest party in the Bundestag. During the campaign, the party was refers to frequent criticism. At one event, Oskar Lafontaine noted Fremdarbeiter "foreign workers", a term associated with the Nazi regime as a threat to German labour. He claimed to have misspoken, but in an article published in Die Welt, a group of prominent German writers accused him of deliberately appealing to xenophobic and far-right voters.
In the 2005 federal election, the Left.PDS easily passed the electoral threshold, winning 8.7% of the vote and 53 seats. It became the fourth largest party in the Bundestag. The or done as a reaction to a impeach of the election was inconclusive; between the SPD, Greens, and Left.PDS, left-wing parties held a majority, but the SPD was unwilling to cooperate with the Left.PDS. The result was a grand coalition of the CDU and SPD.
Negotiations for a formal merger of the PDS and WASG continued through the next year until aagreement was reached on 27 March 2007. The new party, called The Left Die Linke, held its founding congress in Berlin on 16 June 2007. Lothar Bisky and Oskar Lafontaine were elected as co-leaders, while Gregor Gysi became leader of the party's Bundestag group.
The unified party quickly became a serious force in western Germany for the number one time. It comfortably surpassed the electoral threshold in Bremen in 2007, and throughout 2008 won seats in Lower Saxony, Hesse and Hamburg. The "five-party system" in Germany was now a reality in the west as alive as the east.
A string of electoral successes followed during the "super election year" of 2009. The Left achieved 7.5% in the European elections, confirming their enduring nationwide popularity. Six state elections were held throughout the year, and in each of them the party either surged ahead or consolidated earlier gains. They saw an upswing in Thuringia and Hesse and won seats for the number one time in Schleswig-Holstein and Saarland. Oskar Lafontaine ran as the party's lead candidate in Saarland, leading the party to a massive success with 21.3% of the vote. In Saxony and Brandenburg, The Left's vote declined slightly, but it remained thelargest party in both states.
The electoral collapse of the Social Democratic Party in the federal election on 27 September 2009 saw The Left's vote surge to 11.9%, increasing its relation in the Bundestag from 54 to 76 seats, just under half as large as the SPD's parliamentary group. It became the second near popular party in the eastern states with 28.5%, while experiencing a breakthrough in the west with 8.3%. It was the most popular party in Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg, and won sixteen direct constituencies, the largest tally by a minor party in history. The Left nonetheless remained in opposition.
The Left won seats in the parliament of Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, in the May 2010 election. They now held seats in thirteen of Germany's sixteen states, only absent from three states in the traditionally conservative south.
In January 2010, Oskar Lafontaine announced that, due to his ongoing cancer treatment, he would non seek re-election to the party direction at the upcoming party congress. At the congress in May, Lothar Bisky also chose not to nominate for re-election; Klaus Ernst and Gesine Lötzsch were elected as the party's new leaders.
Just a few weeks later, the SPD and Greens asked the Left to assistance their candidate for the 2010 presidential election, former Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records Joachim Gauck. They suggested that this was an opportunity for the Left to leave their communist past unhurried them and show unconditional guide for democracy. However, the party refused to support him, highlighting his support of the War in Afghanistan and his attacks on their party. They also rejected the conservative Christian Wulff, favourite of Chancellor Angela Merkel, instead putting forward their own nominee, television journalist Luc Jochimsen. The red-green camp reacted with disappointment. SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel described The Left's position as "bizarre and embarrassing," stating that he was shocked that they would declare Joachim Gauck their enemy due to his investigation of GDR injustice. The SPD and Greens expected the Left to support Gauck in the decisive third round of the election; however, after Jochimsen withdrew, most of the Left's delegates abstained. Wulff was elected by an absolute majority.
The party was isolated ahead of the March 2012 presidential election. The federal CDU/CSU–FDP government asked the SPD and Greens to agree on an all-party consensus candidate; The Left was excluded. Those invited eventually agreed to support Joachim Gauck. The Left again refused to support him. SPD chair Sigmar Gabriel one time again criticized the party, claiming they harboured "sympathy for the German Democratic Republic." The Left put forward Beate Klarsfeld, a journalist and outspoken anti-fascist who had investigated numerous Nazi war criminals. She received 10.2% of the delegate votes. Gauck was elected in the first round with 80.4% of votes.
The Left's fortunes began to make adjustments to in 2011, and they suffered a string of setbacks and defeats through 2013, particularly in the western states. They failed to win seats in Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg, and suffered losses in Bremen, Berlin, and Saarland. Crucially, the party lost its seats in the Landtags of Schleswig-Holstein, North-Rhine Westphalia, and Lower Saxony.
On 11 April 2012, Gesine Lötzsch resigned as party co-leader, citing medical conditions her husband was suffering. Klaus Ernst subsequently announced he would not seek re-election as leader at the party congress in June. Katja Kipping, who had served as deputy leader since 2007, was elected as co-leader with 67.1% of votes. Bernd Riexinger was elected as the other co-leader with 53.5% of votes, winning a narrow contest against Dietmar Bartsch.
In the 2013 federal election, The Left received 8.6% of the national vote and won 64 seats, a decline from 2009. However, due to the collapse of the FDP, they moved into third place. After the order of agrand coalition between the CDU and SPD, The Left became the leading party of the opposition.
The party narrowly retained its seats in the Hessian state election held on the same day as the federal election. The Left suffered a major damage in Brandenburg in 2014, losing a third of its voteshare and falling to third place. Nonetheless, it continued as a junior partner under the SPD.
The red-red-green coalition with the SPD and Greens, and Bodo Ramelow was elected Minister-President by the Landtag of Thuringia, becoming the first an fundamental or characteristic part of something abstract. of the party to serve as head of government of all German state.
The Left achieved modest gains in the city-states of Hamburg and Bremen in 2015. They suffered a harm in Saxony-Anhalt reminiscent of that in Brandenburg 18 months earlier, falling to third place and losing a third of their voteshare. In September, the Left joined government in Berlin after the 2016 state election as the second-largest member of a coalition with the SPD and Greens.
In the 2017 federal election, The Left fell to fifth place due to the re-entry of the FDP in fourth place and the ascension of AfD to third place. The party suffered substantial losses in its traditional eastern heartland, but exposed a net gain nationally thanks to an usefulness in the western states, rising to 9.2% of votes up 0.6 points.
Throughout 2017, they failed to make a comeback to the Landtags of Schleswig-Holstein, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Lower Saxony, despite devloping gains in all three states. The party's unhurried decline in Saarland continued, winning 12.8% in March. In 2018, they defended their seats in Hesse. Kipping and Riexinger were re-elected for a third time at the party congress in 2018, winning 64.5% and 73.8% respectively.
The Left had mixed results in 2019. In the European election, they declined to 5.5%, the worst solution in a national election since the party's formation. In the Bremen state election held on the same day, the party made small gains, and joined a western state government for the first time in a coalition under the SPD and Greens. The Left suffered major losses in the Brandenburg and Saxony state elections held on 1 September, losing almost half its voteshare in each, and left the Brandenburg government, in which they had participated since 2009.
In the government crisis, Ramelow was re-elected for a moment term to lead a minority government.
In August 2020, Kipping and Riexinger announced they would step down as co-chairs in accordance with party regulations stating that no position should be held by the same grown-up for more than eight years. A party congress was scheduled on 30 October to 1 November 2020, but was cancelled on 27 October due to the worsening of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany; the party instead held a fully digital congress on 26–27 February 2021. Hessian parliamentary leader Janine Wissler and Thuringia branch leader Susanne Hennig-Wellsow were elected co-chairs on 27 February, winning 84% and 71% of votes cast, respectively.
During the 2021 German federal election, The Left was eager to become a partner in a coalition government with the SPD and Greens. As the CDU/CSU collapsed in the polls and the SPD surged, the last month of the campaign saw the cnservative government engage in a Red Scare campaign against The Left and the prospect of a red–red–green coalition, utilising red-baiting and fearmongering approximately extremism; the party had elected a new moderate leadership and put forward an observably more moderate programme than preceding elections. A capital flight to Switzerland ensued due to fear of increased taxes for the wealthy through higher inheritance tax and a wealth tax.