In the struggle for a new leadership of the left, Heidi Reichinnek, member of the Lower Saxony Bundestag, also declared her candidacy on Wednesday. She applies for the place in the dual leadership that is allocated for women and thus challenges the incumbent chairwoman Janine Wissler.

“If we want to overcome the crisis in our party, the much-cited renewal must also be reflected in the party executive,” wrote Reichinnek in a statement on her candidacy. “There can be no business as usual. It needs people who speak the language of the people for whom we make politics.”

The left is in crisis after a series of electoral defeats and internal disputes. Allegations of sexual assault in Wissler’s Hessian state association recently caused a stir. Co-Chair Susanne Hennig-Wellsow resigned in April. The entire party leadership is to be re-elected at the end of June. Wissler returns. The member of the Bundestag Sören Pellmann and the European politician Martin Schirdewan are applying for the place for a man in the dual leadership.

34-year-old Reichinnek is the state chairwoman of Lower Saxony and used to be active in the left-wing youth organization Solid. She complained that many people no longer felt represented by politics. That is dangerous for democracy. “We have to show exactly these people that we are there for them.” She mentioned social justice, rising prices, low pensions and high rents as well as the climate issue as topics. The left must be a “powerful political force”.