Hennig-Wellsow has led the left together with Janine Wissler since the end of February 2021.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The co-chair Susanne Hennig-Wellsow offers her resignation. The left-wing politician said this in a statement published on her website on Wednesday. “Today I am resigning my position as party leader of the left with immediate effect,” wrote the 44-year-old. Hennig-Wellsow has led the left together with Janine Wissler since the end of February 2021.
She justified this, among other things, with her private situation. This does not allow “being there for my party with the strength and time that is necessary in the current situation”. She has an eight-year-old son who needs her. “But in this situation, the left also needs a leader who is there for the party with everything she has.”
As a further reason for the resignation, Hennig-Wellsow named a necessary renewal of the party “and this renewal needs new faces to be credible”. She also mentions how sexism is dealt with in her own ranks.
This revealed blatant deficits of the party. Last Friday, alleged cases of sexualized violence in the Hessian Left Party became public in a report by the news magazine Der Spiegel.
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In her statement, Hennig-Wellsow also cited the disappointing result in the general election. At that time, the left had just re-entered the Bundestag and has not recovered since. “We have delivered too little of what we promised. There was no real new beginning. An apology is due, an apology to our constituents whose hopes and expectations we have betrayed.”
Hennig-Wellsow has led Die Linke together with Janine Wissler since the end of February 27, 2021. At that time, the duo succeeded Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger, who had given up another term as party chairmen after nine years.
Before she was elected to the Bundestag last year, she was a member of the Thuringian state parliament for 17 years, and has also been a parliamentary group leader since 2014. In this office, Hennig-Wellsow gained nationwide fame when, in February 2020, she threw a bouquet of flowers at the feet of the FDP politician Thomas Kemmerich, who was then elected Prime Minister with AfD votes.
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