The left is threatened with expulsion from the Bundestag. But there is still Bodo Ramelow. His constituency could decide the party’s parliamentary existence.
Is that really him? Some of the people coming out of the supermarket or rushing to the tram look curiously at the man shivering in front of them in a short black coat. But yes, there he is standing on the “People’s Friendship Square” in Erfurt and smiling quite friendly: Bodo Ramelow, 68 years old and until recently the left-wing Prime Minister of Thuringia.
The usual campaign arrangement is set up around him: a red umbrella with the party logo, a loudspeaker system, a few posters. Ballpoint pens, glasses cloths and brochures are laid out on a table. Next to them are paper bags with the inscription: “From the state father to the federal Bodo”. In the middle of it all, a large thermos flask with hot tea beckons.
Ramelow does what he does best: he talks. And talks. Here, in one of the apartment blocks, he shouts into the microphone that he once lived when he came to Thuringia from Hesse in 1990. At that time he stood up as a trade unionist for the people who once worked in the shopping center. “This is my quarters!” he says.
But only a few passers-by remain standing; after an hour there will be a good dozen. Maybe it’s because it’s quite cold and slowly getting dark. But perhaps it is also because in this gray district, where prefabricated buildings and commercial areas alternate, Ramelow’s Left Party no longer dominates – but Björn Höcke’s AfD.
Because here too, in the north of Erfurt, the Prime Minister has clearly been voted out. In the state elections in September, his left party fell from 31 percent to 13.1 percent, while the AfD gained almost a third of the vote and won the election with almost 33 percent. The partners of Ramelow’s red-red-green minority coalition also lost votes, and the Greens even had to leave the state parliament. The CDU has been in power since mid-December with the remnants of the SPD – and the left-wing spinoff BSW.
Bodo Ramelow has to help out his party again
Nevertheless, the former head of government is already in the middle of the election campaign. He now wants to go to the Bundestag. Not because he absolutely needed it. The pension is secure and he also has a mandate in the state parliament. But there is still his party.
The Left is in the most serious existential crisis since it was formed in 2007 from the merger of the PDS and WASG. It not only suffers from the social mood or the radical populist competition from Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW, but also from the well-known internal conflicts, be they ideological or personal. In the surveys, the Left has been consistently below the five percent threshold for months; most surveys put it at just three percent.
The party wants to decide on its election program in Berlin on Saturday. But despite the many social demands from minimum wages to rent caps, it is unlikely to be noticed. It is more likely that the Left will decide its parliamentary existence here, in Thuringia, in Bodo Ramelow’s constituency. If he wins, the Left could probably stay in the Bundestag. And if not, then not.
The key is the so-called direct mandate clause. It was abolished by the traffic light coalition, but was then reinstated by the Federal Constitutional Court after a lawsuit from the Left. The exception rule states: If a party wins three constituencies outright, the five percent threshold no longer applies. Instead, she enters parliament based on her total second vote result.
At least three direct mandates are needed
In the 2021 federal election, the Left only barely made it into parliament with 4.9 percent because exactly three MPs, Gregor Gysi, Gesine Lötzsch and Sören Pellmann, won their constituencies directly. The party thus occupied 39 mandates – until the BSW split off a good year ago and it shrank from a parliamentary group to a “group” in the Bundestag.
So on February 23rd, Gysi, who turned 77 on Thursday, should win his Berlin constituency in Treptow-Köpenick again. Since he defended his mandate in 2021 with a lead of 20 percentage points over the competition, he is once again the clear favorite.
The victory of Sören Pellmann, who has held the Leipzig II constituency since 2017, is not quite as certain. In 2021, his lead over Green MP Paula Piechotta, who is running again, was just over four percentage points. The BSW also appears with its own candidate.
Gysi, Bartsch and the “Silberlocke Mission”
The biggest problem for the left is Gesine Lötzsch’s previous constituency. The MP, who has won in Berlin-Lichtenberg since 2002, is leaving politics, and this is certainly due to the lack of peace. Even on the left, few believe her successor candidate – the new party leader Ines Schwerdtner – will be successful.
That’s why the eternal party stalwart Nestor Gysi agreed with Ramelow to run for emergency candidacy. The team of the so-called “Mission Silberlocke”, as they call themselves, also includes the former Bundestag faction leader Dietmar Bartsch, who, however, has little chance of winning in his Rostock constituency.
This means that the question of whether the Left will remain in the Bundestag will probably be finally answered in Thuringia. However, it won’t be easy for Ramelow. The competition is big and prominent.
Most recently, the constituency was won by Carsten Schneider, the SPD MP and Federal Government Commissioner for the East, who is of course running again. Katrin Göring-Eckardt, the Vice President of the Bundestag, is running again for the Greens. And state leader Thomas Kemmerich, who briefly ousted Ramelow from the state chancellery five years ago with the help of the AfD, is running for the FDP.
Only the CDU candidate, which has already occupied the constituency several times, is new and still largely unknown. But his party’s national trend speaks for him. The BSW has also put forward an applicant here.
Above all, the AfD should not be underestimated. The constituency, which also includes Weimar and part of the associated district, is primarily urban. But it still includes many villages – and large prefabricated building areas like in the north of Erfurt.
From co-founder of the party to its potential savior
Nevertheless, the Left is optimistic: If anyone could do it, it would be their former head of government, who bucked the trend in the state elections and defended his state parliament mandate in the south of Erfurt.
It’s a story that Ramelow loves, especially since he plays a major role in it. The title: Savior Ramelow. The plot: As a fusion representative, he formed the left, as prime minister he made it the strongest force in Thuringia – and now, as a candidate for the Bundestag, he wants to keep it in parliament.
But before the left-wing happy ending can come, Ramelow stands alone between the prefabricated buildings in front of a small audience, while a few men drink an early beer on a nearby bench. He routinely complains that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Many people are afraid to open their electricity or heating bills, he exclaims. “You’re scared!”
The candidate himself doesn’t seem scared at all. Here he is not only in his quarters, but also in his element. It shouldn’t matter to him that hardly anyone is listening to him. Attacking from behind has always been his thing.
No appointment is too small for him. Before the performance in front of the supermarket there was a pensioners’ afternoon in the village of Marbach. “I really enjoy it,” he says star. “I’m full of energy.”
Plus, it remains so important. Two police cars are parked not far from a black SUV with flashing lights strapped to the roof. The bodyguards from the State Criminal Police Office have positioned themselves discreetly.
A few days ago, says Ramelow, he and Gysi and Bartsch completed several interviews in Berlin with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” and the “Super-Illu”. The “Silberlocke Mission” is creating the urgently needed attention for the party.
Vacation during the election campaign
And for himself – although Ramelow would of course want to look at this differently. Actually, he says, he wanted to take a few weeks of vacation after the state election campaign and the strenuous months of the transition period in the State Chancellery. But the future of the left is more important than relaxation: “I’m just taking my vacation during the election campaign.”
It has become dark between the supermarket, drugstore and tram stop. The cold bites their faces. The campaign stand is dismantled again – only to be rebuilt a few blocks away, on “Moscow Square”. Ramelow isn’t finished yet that evening. Someone has to save the left.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
