Ecological left

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Ecological left
Party leader (“Federal Spokespersons ” 2019)
Dorothea Becker
Andrea Capitain
Karin Döpke
Sascha Jensen
Christoph Preuschoff
Gerd Riemann
José Antonio Roque Toimil
Otto Salmen
founding December 1991
Place of foundation Frankfurt am Main
Headquarters Frankfurt am Main
Alignment Eco-socialism
Basic democracy
Feminism
Anti-capitalism
Number of members 345 (according to own information, as of May 2019)
Website oekologische-linke.de

The ecological left ( short name : ÖkoLinX ; formerly ÖkoLi ) is a small German party that was founded in 1991 by former members of the Greens around Jutta Ditfurth and Manfred Zieran (* 1951) in Frankfurt am Main and won political mandates in the city ​​council .

prehistory

→ Main article: History of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen # Reorganization of the Greens and departure of the left wing (1990–1993)

In the late 1980s, radical ecologists and eco-socialists operated jointly in the Greens as the “ecological left”. The so-called Realos around Joschka Fischer and Otto Schily called them “ Fundis ”. Together they made up the majority in the federal executive of the Greens from 1984 to 1988 and in 1987/1988 with Thomas Ebermann one of the three spokesmen for the parliamentary group. They tried to prevent the parliamentarization of the Greens and coalitions with the SPD.

In the run-up to German reunification in 1990, the Realos received majorities within the party, which increased after the Greens' losses in the 1990 Bundestag election . In the spring of 1990, the eco-socialists around Rainer Trampert and Thomas Ebermann resigned from the Greens, in September also Jürgen Reents . At the federal party congress in Neumünster in April 1991, a majority affirmed the state's monopoly on force and henceforth defined the Greens as an “ecological reform party”. In addition, the rotation principle was abolished, the federal board was reduced in size and paid board spokesmen were introduced. Many radical ecologists saw in these resolutions the partial abandonment of the original grassroots democracy . Jutta Ditfurth announced her departure.

Party formation

In December 1991 around 350 people, mostly former members of the Greens around Ditfurth and their partner, the journalist Manfred Zieran (* 1951), founded the Ecological Left / Alternative List in Frankfurt am Main . This wanted to achieve “networking and coordination of the work of radical ecological, socialist, autonomous and feminist political approaches” and to strengthen the anti-capitalist extra-parliamentary opposition in Germany.

The Green politician Ludger Volmer commented on the founding in 1991: A party like the Ecological Left, which tries to combine ecology with anti-capitalism , could play a productive role as an extra-parliamentary counterpower. A candidacy for the Bundestag without the slightest chance of moving in had an "objective reactionary function: to push the Greens below 5% and to stabilize the three-party system".

According to the political scientist and research associate of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Jürgen Hoffmann , the ecological left came into being as a reaction to the Greens' departure from founding principles in the course of their change from an anti-party party to a ruling party. He cited German reunification and the defeat of the Greens in 1990 as the main reasons for this: As a result, the Greens personalized and professionalized their conflicts, but at the same time gradually abandoned their grassroots democratic instruments. The ecological left wanted to maintain the Greens' original ties to new social movements, but remained a splinter group.

Policy statement

The political positions that ÖkoLinX represents and discusses are available in a basic program , regular leaflets and in the ÖkoLinX magazine (1991 to 1999, published by Jutta Ditfurth, among others). The party programs are in two parts: the first part expresses the common political will of the members and is a binding basis for action for all party organs. A second part can announce additional or differing views, for which at least 20% of members have voted for program proposals. This part also remains within the scope of the statutes.

The declaration of principle adopted when it was founded and revised several times by 1993 consists of three parts: Part I carries out a global analysis of society, which shows the situation of the vast majority of people in Africa, Asia and Latin America as being characterized by poverty and exploitation and some solutions offered by industrialized nations, for example describes genetic engineering as an increased means of exploitation and control of man and nature for capital interests. Part II describes perspectives for action, Part III the most important party principles: According to its declaration of principle, the ecological left sees itself as " anti-capitalist , solidarity and radical ecological", "anti patriarchal and feminist ", " anti-racist and internationalist ", " anti-militarist ", "anti-state and grassroots democracy " .

organization

According to the statutes, “anyone, including Germans, who campaigns for the principles of the organization and its program” can become a member of the party. Only members of state “repressive organs” who have violated human rights are excluded . The party is organized on a grassroots basis: All members can participate in their political will-formation, find out about all internal matters, exercise passive and active voting rights, run for office or on electoral lists and organize themselves independently in project areas. Each member should represent the party principles. The party is divided into a federal conference, a federal coordination council, federal spokesman council and supraregional project areas. A minimum parity of 50% women applies to all organs and sub-groups, except in project areas for gays.

According to its annual report for 2016, the ecological left is divided into a federal association and state associations in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Hesse, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. The report shows no membership fees for said regional associations and assets of just under 5000 €. It does not receive any government party funding , owns no company shares or real estate, and generates most of its income from private donations. In 2019 it had 345 members and only the State Association of Hesse existed.

Local politics

While the ecological left was never able to achieve more than 0.0% of the votes when participating in state elections in Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, it has been represented at the local political level in Frankfurt am Main since 2001 by MPs. In Frankfurt am Main, the ecological left has formed the ÖkoLinX-ARL voter community under the name ÖkoLinX with the anti-racist list since 2001 . As a result of the lifting of the five percent hurdle , it won one mandate each in 2001 (0.9%), 2006 (1.2%) and 2011 (1.2%). She represented a minority opposition to the coalition of the Greens and CDU in the city council until 2016 . After the local elections in 2011, ÖkoLinX-ARL briefly formed a colorful parliamentary group together with the elected representatives of the Pirate Party and Europa Liste Frankfurt (ELF) . In the 2016 local elections in Frankfurt am Main, ÖkoLinX-ARL received 2.1% of the vote and thus two seats in the Römer, which went to Jutta Ditfurth and Manfred Zieran.

In 2002, the party was active against the planned north-west railway at Frankfurt Airport , in 2008 against the NPD at Christoph Büchel's Politica exhibition in Kassel, in 2008 it rejected the high-rise master plan of the Frankfurt city administration as "an anti-social planning policy based entirely on big capital" and applied in 2010, to cancel a planned reception of partly right-wing fraternities in the Römer.

The party has also been represented in Frankfurt since 2011 in local advisory boards I ( Bahnhof , Gallus , Gutleut , Innenstadt ), III ( Frankfurt-Nordend ) and IV ( Frankfurt-Bornheim / Ostend ).

In the Ludwigsburg municipal council, the two council members, who were elected for the party Die Linke in 2014 and left it in 2016, represented ÖkolinX until 2019.

European elections 2019

For the European elections in 2019 , ÖkoLinX entered the nationwide list for the first time, with Jutta Ditfurth as the top candidate, but with a nationwide result of 0.1% (35,794 votes) it missed the target of a seat in the EU Parliament.

The main goals of the party in a European declaration were an effective opposition "against the right-wing front in Europe", against a "racist, anti-Semitic, misanthropic" Europe, "in front of whose fortress walls people drown", and against attempts to "protest and resist surveillance and To intimidate militarization inside as well as outside ”, called. Instead, she advocates the "sexual and reproductive self-determination of women and the comprehensive emancipation of all people, regardless of gender, sexual orientation or origin" and wants to contribute to "preventing the destruction of the climate." To this end, ÖkoLinX called for an immediate exit from coal , a right to self-determined abortion and against surveillance. The party supports sea rescue in the Mediterranean and wanted to use the work in the European Parliament to support and network left-wing projects in Europe that are fighting for the same goals.

Ditfurth saw her candidacy as a “declaration of war against the right” and, instead of campaigning, offered lectures and discussions on the subjects of “Capitalism kills climate” and “how left anti-Zionism became anti-Semitism ”. The election campaign funds were low. According to Jutta Ditfurth, her lectures in Jena and Leipzig were mainly attended by young people between the ages of 20 and 30, and her lecture tours were "often shaped" by activists from Fridays for Future .

criticism

The political scientist and employee of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Andreas Schulze said in his 2004 publication on the history of small parties in Germany that the ecological left was a “left-wing extremist result of wing struggles by the Greens”. The “fundamentalist group” sees itself as the only movement that pursues “true” ecological politics ”. Other ecological orientations, especially veganism , would be called " eco-fascism ".

In the report of the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution of Hesse on the 2016 local elections, the party is assigned to the area of left-wing extremism . In response to a small request from the FDP MP Wolfgang Greilich in the Hessian state parliament "regarding demonstrations and rallies involving the left-wing extremist or left-wing extremist spectrum" in 2014-2017, ÖkoLinX was identified as being involved against AfD rallies in a table with 197 entries twice listed under "left-wing extremist group".

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bundeswahlleiter.de: Ökologische Linke - ÖkoLinX. March 29, 2019 (PDF p. 2)
  2. ↑ a b Henning Spreckelmeyer: Ökologische Linke (ÖkoLinX) In: Federal Agency for Civic Education : Who stands for election , European elections 2019, May 3, 2019
  3. ↑ Jochen Weichold: The Greens - Departure for Adaptation . In: UTOPIE Kreativ, magazine. 171, January 2005 , pp. 34–41, here p. 37.
  4. ↑ Frank Decker, Viola Neu (ed.): Handbook of the German parties. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-90460-3 , p. 174
  5. ↑ Frank Decker, Viola Neu (ed.): Handbook of the German parties. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-90460-3 , p. 174
  6. ↑ Christoph Weckenbrock: Black-Green for Germany? How political arch enemies became allies. transcript, Berlin 2017, ISBN 3-7328-4043-3 , pp. 57-60
  7. ↑ Andreas Stifel: On the successful failure of a movement: Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen as a political party and socio-cultural phenomenon. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2018, ISBN 978-3-658-19445-1 , p. 75
  8. ↑ Jutta Ditfurth, Manfred Zieran: Short biography Manfred Zieran. ÖkoLinX anti-racist list in the Römer, Frankfurt am Main (January 27) 2016.
  9. ↑ Jochen Weichold, Horst Dietzel, Herbert Schwenk: The European Left: Comparative Study on Left Parties and Movements in Europe. Podium Progressiv, Verlag Diskurs, 1992, p. 70
  10. ^ "Ecological Left" party founded , Neues Deutschland , December 9, 1991
  11. ↑ Jürgen Hoffmann: The double unification: history, course and effects of the amalgamation of the Greens and Alliance 90. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 1998, ISBN 978-3-663-09689-4 , p. 225 and p. 257
  12. ↑ Peter Eisenmann, Gerhard Hirscher: The development of the people's parties in a united Germany. Verlag Aktuell, 1992, ISBN 3-87959-471-6 , p. 112
  13. ↑ Ludger Volmer: Mud-encrusted and life-saving . In: Thomas Klein, Vera Vordenbäum (ed.): No opposition. Nowhere? Left in Germany after the fall of real socialism , Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 978-3-86153-027-5 , p. 50
  14. ^ Jürgen Hoffmann: The Greens and the Ecological Movement in Germany. In: Axel Goodbody (Ed.): The Culture of German Environmentalism: Anxieties, Visions, Realities. Berghahn, 2004, ISBN 1-57181-670-4 , p. 74
  15. ^ Database of German-speaking Anarchism - DadA. Department: Periodicals 1798 - 2001 ff.
  16. ^ Bundeswahlleiter.de: Ökologische Linke - ÖkoLinX. March 29, 2019 (PDF, Articles of Association § 5)
  17. ^ Bundeswahlleiter.de: Ökologische Linke - ÖkoLinX. March 29, 2019 (PDF, Policy Statement, pp. 1–28)
  18. ^ Bundeswahlleiter.de: Ökologische Linke - ÖkoLinX. March 29, 2019 (PDF, Articles of Association § 3 and 4)
  19. ↑ Ecological Left. Annual report for the year 2016 in accordance with §§ 23 ff. Political Parties Act (PartG) . In: President of the German Bundestag Wolfgang Schäuble (Hrsg.): Announcement of statements of accounts of political parties for the calendar year 2016 (3rd part - other parties) . Printed matter 19/10420. Berlin May 22, 2019, p. 27-41 .
  20. ↑ Name: Ökologische Linke, short name: ÖkoLinx, overview of the board members, statutes, program (as of March 29, 2019) , bundeswahlleiter.de
  21. ↑ Local election results in Frankfurt am Main in 2006 compared with 2001
  22. ^ Local election results in Frankfurt am Main 2006
  23. ↑ Local election results in Frankfurt am Main 2011
  24. ↑ Martin Gross: Coalition-building processes at the municipal level: Black-Green in major German cities. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-12266-9 , pp. 289-294
  25. Jump up ↑ Roman coalition in Frankfurt , Frankfurter Rundschau, September 7, 2018
  26. ^ Hans Riebsamen: Ditfurth reactivates Ökolinx; Jutta alone in the Römer. FAZ, September 7, 2011
  27. ↑ Frankfurt.de (Citizens' Office, Statistics and Elections): City Council Election 2016 in Frankfurt am Main: List / Proposal 8, "ÖkoLinX-ARL".
  28. ↑ Wolfgang Schubert: Lawsuit against the Flughafen-Nordbahn: The majority stands. Frankfurter Rundschau (FR), June 12, 2002
  29. ^ Joachim F. Tornau: 'Politica' in Kassel: A cage full of democrats. FRI, September 8, 2008
  30. ↑ Claus-Jürgen Göpfert: Ecologically in the height. FR, December 12, 2008
  31. ^ Frank Schuster: Fraternity meeting: Open doors for right-wing boys. FR, November 2, 2010
  32. ^ A b Claus-Jürgen Göpfert: European election: ÖkolinX strives for Europe. Frankfurter Rundschau, February 26, 2019
  33. ^ > Rafael Binkowski: Ökolinx group in the Ludwigsburg municipal council. Against the current - but with a profile. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung, July 11, 2016
  34. ↑ Paradigm shift in Ludwigsburg: The bourgeois majority in the municipal council is lost , Stuttgarter Zeitung, May 27, 2019
  35. ^ Bundeswahlleiter.de: European elections 2019: Results Germany. May 27, 2019
  36. ↑ Ökologische Linke.de: Europe Declaration
  37. ↑ Jannis Große: Election programs in check: What the 40 parties in the European elections stand for. Bento, May 13, 2019
  38. ↑ Christoph Schmidt-Lunau: Use all opportunities. taz, May 17, 2019
  39. ^ Andreas Schulze: History of German Small Parties . In: Small parties in Germany . Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 978-3-8244-4558-5 , p. 131-132 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-322-81326-8 .
  40. ^ Hessian Ministry of the Interior and for Sport : Protection of the Constitution in Hessen - Report 2016 , p. 122 (PDF).
  41. ↑ Peter Beuth : Small inquiry from Abg. Greilich (FDP) from August 9th, 2017 regarding demonstrations and rallies with the participation of the left-wing extremist or left-wing extremist spectrum and answer from the Minister of the Interior and for Sport . Ed .: Hessischer Landtag . Printed matter 19/5132. Wiesbaden January 25, 2018, p. 1, 11, 14 ( hessen.de [PDF; 228 kB ]).