Hennig-Wellsow’s resignation: scandal surrounding sexist assaults

fFor a left-wing party that sees itself as feminist, more diverse and more progressive than all of its political competition, the “MeToo” scandal about sexually assaulting Hessian comrades is the GAU. Because the party leader is at the center of the scandal Janine Wissler. The former leader of the Hessian parliamentary group faces the accusation of criminal protection because the suspicion of sexually assaulting a very young party friend against her partner at the time.

It was the revelations about what is possibly the biggest case of sexual assault in a party represented in the Bundestag, which is its co-chair Susanne Hennig-Wellsow prompted him to withdraw from the party leadership on Wednesday. The Thuringian politician, who, with Bodo Ramelow as a key witness, campaigned for the ability of the left to govern, was already aware after her party’s debacle in the federal election that she was on a losing battle. In her explanation of the reasons for her resignation, however, she gives only soft, vague references to the shortcomings of the smallest opposition party.

In the west, the left has long been marginalized

In the assessment of the Russian attack on Ukraine, abysses open up in the party, in which even old comrades and Putin friends like Hans Modrow are up to mischief. Not a word about dealing with each other, which is sometimes just as rude on the left as it is with the AfD. The mud fight on the Saar, which led to the resignation of the former luminary Oskar Lafontaine, is just one example of many. The ongoing feud of his wife Sahra Wagenknecht, who is popular outside the left, with Gregor Gysi is no less daunting.

In the west is the left marginalized for a long time, alone in small Bremen she sits at the side table of power. Desperately, Hennig-Wellsow calls for a programmatic renewal with new faces. The appeal of the failed sounds like a last stand.