State elections | Left Party in Thuringia wants to get closer to people again

To ensure that The Left Party in Thuringia can be more successful in the 2029 state elections than in the most recent state elections, the state executive committee envisions that its members should once again actively engage with the lives of the people in their communities. Membership in The Left Party must be much more than having a party membership card and attending an annual reception once a year, said Katja Maurer, the state chairwoman of The Left Party, in Erfurt this weekend after a closed meeting of the state executive committee. "We will train our members to recognize where they are needed locally and what they can specifically do." This could include helping out at the local food bank, supporting people in learning to swim, or "carrying Grandma Erna's shopping from X to Y, so to speak."

Like Maurer, co-state chairman Ralf Plötner also stated that integrating the many new members of the Left Party into the party is an absolute prerequisite for the party's success again in the elections at the end of the current legislative period. According to Plötner, approximately 1,250 new people have joined the Thuringian Left Party since the beginning of 2025, meaning the party now has approximately 4,400 members.

The Left Party governed Thuringia for ten years as part of a red-red-green coalition government. In the 2019 state election, they even became the strongest party with a second-vote share of 31 percent. In the most recent state election in 2024, they plummeted to a second-vote share of 13.1 percent and were forced into opposition.

Maurer explicitly acknowledged that the Left Party's state executive committee's fundamental idea that party members should actively help improve the lives of others locally is in keeping with the Left Party's concept as a caring party. "You're welcome to phrase it that way, yes," she said. However, this also raises some key questions, especially in light of the party's many new members.

On the one hand, Die Linke, especially in eastern Germany, has in the past very strongly and explicitly seen itself as a caring party. Its members have often supported socially disadvantaged people in everyday matters, both in and out of local communities. A large part of the strong support the Left enjoyed in the east, not only in the years after reunification, was based on this concept.

"We will train our members to recognize where they are needed locally and what they can specifically do."

Katja Maurer, Left Party co-chair in Thuringia

On the other hand, however, younger leftists in particular have increasingly turned away from this concept in recent years, identifying more with larger, global struggles and left-wing movements. It is precisely these young leftists who have recently joined the party, so it remains to be seen whether the many new Left Party members are truly willing to focus more on Grandma Erna's shopping than on large-scale protests, for example, against the war in the Gaza Strip.

The Left Party intends to resolve personnel issues related to the 2029 state election in the coming months—aware that it will take a long time to develop the politicians who will lead the party in the next state election campaign as nationally known politicians. As relatively new state leaders, Maurer said, she and Plötner now want to spend six months assessing the party's talent. She and Plötner were surprisingly elected to lead the Thuringian Left Party in June.

It was clear, however, that the current leader of the Left Party in Thuringia, former Minister-President Bodo Ramelow, would not run again as the top candidate in 2029, it was stated. However, the goal is not to find someone exactly like him. "We don't intend to clone Bodo Ramelow," Maurer said. That's not possible anyway. "A Bodo Ramelow like that is a Bodo Ramelow."

According to Maurer and Plötner, the Left intends to focus on the issues of healthcare, education and housing in the coming months – especially in the discussions on the Free State's double budget for 2026 and 2027.