The Left Lower Saxony

The Left Lower Saxony
Chairperson	Heidi Reichinnek Lars Leopold
Treasurer	Hans-Georg Hartwig
executive Director	Christoph Podstawa
Establishment date	September 8, 2007
Place of foundation	Hanover
Headquarters	Goseriede 8 30159 Hanover
Landtag mandates	0/137
Number of members	3,112 (as of December 31, 2018)
Website	www.dielinke-nds.de

Die Linke Niedersachsen (spelling: DIE LINKE. Lower Saxony ) is the Lower Saxony state association of the party Die Linke . The headquarters of the regional association is the state capital Hanover, in which there is a regional office. The Left is represented by five Lower Saxony MPs in the Bundestag and one from Lower Saxony in the European Parliament.

history

The state association Die Linke Niedersachsen was founded on their state party conference on September 8 and 9, 2007 from the state association PDS Lower Saxony and the state association WASG Lower Saxony as a result of the establishment of the party Die Linke on June 16, 2007. At the first state party conference, Diether Dehm and Kreszentia Flauger elected the party's first state chairman.

In the course of the state elections in 2008 , the Left with 7.1% and 11 members of parliament succeeded in entering the Lower Saxony state parliament . The state chairwoman Kreszentia Flauger was chairman of the parliamentary group together with Manfred Sohn in a dual leadership. Shortly after moving into the state parliament, Christel Wegner , member of the state parliament, who entered the state parliament as a DKP member via the state list of the Left, was excluded from the left-wing faction due to a controversial statement on the building of the wall in the GDR and remained as a non-attached member of the state parliament. Thus the left faction only had 10 members.

At the 2nd state party conference in 2009 Diether Dehm was confirmed as state chairman. The previous co-chair, Kreszentia Flauger, no longer stood as state chair. The reason was her activity as the parliamentary group leader of the parliamentary group, on which she wanted to concentrate. Giesela Brandes-Steggewentz from Osnabrück became the new state chairwoman .

In the 2009 Bundestag elections , the Left won 76 Bundestag seats with 11.2%. This was the highest election result of the left and its predecessor PDS until then and until now. The left in Lower Saxony benefited from this, because 6 candidates from Lower Saxony moved into the Bundestag.

The previous state chairman Diether Dehm did not run again at the 3rd state party conference in 2010. The state chairwoman Giesela Brandes-Steggewentz was confirmed in her office. The new state chairman was the parliamentary group leader of the left-wing parliamentary group in the Lower Saxony state parliament, Manfred Sohn . He subsequently renounced the chairmanship of the parliamentary group in order to concentrate on his new role as state chairman. For him, Hans-Henning Adler , alongside the parliamentary group leader Kreszentia Flauger, became the new parliamentary group chairman in the state parliament.

The first challenge for the new top duo of the Lower Saxony Left was the first local election since the foundation of the state association. In the 2011 local elections , the party achieved 2.4% across Lower Saxony.

At the 4th state party conference in 2012, the previous state chairman Manfred Sohn was re-elected. MEP Sabine Lösing became the new co-chair for Giesela Brandes-Steggewentz, who was no longer there .

In the 2013 state elections , the party clearly failed to return to the state parliament with 3.1% of the votes cast and subsequently left the state parliament. As a result of the lost state election, the state party founded the so-called “extra-parliamentary group”, or APF for short, which was supposed to comment on developments in the state parliament and act as an extra-parliamentary opposition. The work of the APF almost came to a standstill during the legislative period of the state parliament.

In the 2013 Bundestag election , the party in Lower Saxony received 5.0% of the valid votes. Four members of the Lower Saxony state list for the federal election moved into the Bundestag.

Despite the result of the Bundestag election, the party was unable to recover from the lost state election. This resulted in disputes within the party. A rift between the dominant member of the Bundestag and former state chairman Diether Dehm and the incumbent state chairman Manfred Sohn ensured that the work of the state board almost came to a standstill. At the 1st session of the 5th state party congress in 2015, Manfred Sohn did not run again and withdrew from active politics. Sabine Lösing was also not available to run for state chairmanship again. At the party congress, Herbert Behrens, Member of the Bundestag, and Anja Stoeck were elected as the new state chairmen. They were able to set up the state party again.

During the term of office of the top duo Behrens-Stoeck, the first practical test for the left at the municipal level also fell. In the local elections in Lower Saxony in 2016 , the Left was able to record 3.3% across Lower Saxony, an increase of 0.9% compared to 2011.

When the state list was drawn up for the 2017 federal election , state chairman Herbert Behrens, who had been in the Bundestag since 2009, was no longer elected to the state list. As a result, he announced that he would not run again for state chairmanship.

On March 4 and 5, 2017, Lower Saxony's member of the Bundestag, Pia Zimmermann , was elected regional chairman alongside the previous state chairman Anja Stoeck, who was re-elected, making for the first time in the history of the “Die Linke” party a female dual leadership of a state association.

In the state elections in 2017 , the party just missed entry into the state parliament with 4.6% of the votes cast.

In June 2018, Pia Zimmermann resigned from her position as state chairwoman. Lars Leopold was elected as his successor in September 2018 . After Anja Stoeck's resignation, Heidi Reichinnek was elected as the new co-state chairwoman in March 2019.

State chairman

Term of office	State chairman	State chairman
2007-2009	Diether Dehm	Kreszentia Flauger
2009-2010	Diether Dehm	Giesela Brandes-Steggewentz
2010–2012	Manfred son	Giesela Brandes-Steggewentz
2012-2015	Manfred son	Sabine Lösing
2015-2017	Herbert Behrens	Anja Stoeck
2017-2018	Pia carpenter	Anja Stoeck
2018-2019	Lars Leopold	Anja Stoeck
since 2019	Lars Leopold	Heidi Reichinnek

State Board

function	member	place of residence
State chairman	Heidi Reichinnek	Osnabrück
State Chairman	Lars Leopold	Eime
deputy state chairman	Ursula Weisser-Roelle	Braunschweig
Deputy State Chairman	Thorben Peters	Luneburg
Country Managing Director	Christoph Podstawa	Luneburg
State Treasurer	Hans-Georg Hartwig	Braunschweig
deputy state treasurer	Anne Zimmermann	Wolfsburg
another executive member of the state board	Rita Kruger	Hildesheim
Youth policy spokesman	Salim Hemeed	Hanover
State Board Member	Agnes rabbit hunter	Hanover
State Board Member	Hans-Henning Adler	Oldenburg (Oldb)
State Board Member	Behiye Uca	Celle
State Board Member	Johannes Drücker	Hanover
State Board Member	Ann-Christin Huber	Osnabrück
State Board Member	Daphne Weber	Hildesheim
State Board Member	Maik Brückner	Hildesheim
State Board Member	Kathrin Otte	Luneburg
State Board Member	Stephan Marquardt	Hamelin
State Board Member	Franziska Junker	Leer (East Frisia)
State Board Member	Haimo Stiemer	Oldenburg

Parliamentary group

In the state elections in Lower Saxony in 2008 , the state party won 7.1% of the votes in the Lower Saxony state parliament. Since then, the Left has been represented by 11 members in the Lower Saxony state parliament, one of which was excluded from the left-wing parliamentary group, who was elected as a member of the German Communist Party via the state list of the Left. Thus Die Linke only had 10 members of the state parliament. At the end of the period, shortly before the state election, Sigrid Leuschner , member of the SPD state parliament, converted to the left-wing parliamentary group. Thus, at the end of the electoral period, Die Linke again had 11 members of the state parliament.

In the state elections in Lower Saxony in 2013 , the left failed to make it into the state parliament because it failed to meet the 5% hurdle. With a state list of 21 candidates drawn up on May 20 and 21, 2017 at a state representative assembly in Braunschweig , she tried again to get back into the state parliament, but did not succeed. She went u. a. with the following candidates in the state election campaign:

List place	Candidate	place of residence	comment
1	Anja Stoeck	Winsen (Luhe)	Top candidate in a double leadership with Hans-Henning Adler State chairman since 2015
2	Hans-Henning Adler	Oldenburg (Oldb)	Top candidate in a double leadership with Anja Stoeck Member of the state parliament 2008-2013 Chairman of the parliamentary group in the state parliament 2010–2013
3	Ursula Weisser-Roelle	Braunschweig	Member of the state parliament 2008-2013
4th	Herbert Behrens	Osterholz-Scharmbeck	Member of the Bundestag 2009–2017 State chairman 2015–2017

Lower Saxony member of the German Bundestag

In the 2017 federal election , Die Linke received 9.2% of the second vote and thus received 69 of 709 seats. In Lower Saxony, Die Linke rose from 5.0% in 2013 to 7.0% in the federal election. This means that in the Lower Saxony state association of the Left, 5 instead of the previous only 4 members have now moved into the Bundestag via the state list. The Left Lower Saxony is represented by the following members of the Bundestag (sorted by list position):

• Pia carpenter
• Diether Dehm
• Jutta Krellmann
• Victor Perli
• Amira Mohamed Ali

Lower Saxony member of the European Parliament

In the European Parliament , Die Linke in Lower Saxony was represented by a MEP. From 2009 to 2019 the former state chairwoman Sabine Lösing from Lower Saxony was a member of the European Parliament and represented the Lower Saxony Left Party in the GUE / NGL parliamentary group of the European Parliament . Sabine Lösing was re-elected in 2014 and left in 2019.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Left Party is getting younger, more rebellious and also more unpredictable. Rundblick Niedersachsen, March 3, 2019, accessed on August 18, 2019 . 
2. ↑ The left. Lower Saxony founded. ( Memento of the original from April 4, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: die-linke-bs.de , September 11, 2007, accessed on April 4, 2017. 
3. ↑ welt: SPD and CDU lose members. welt, January 21, 2019, accessed January 29, 2019 . 
4. ↑ http://www.dielinke-nds.de/fileadmin/user_upload/_temp_/Landessatzung_NI_Stand_Februar_2015.pdf
5. ^ Anja Stoeck and Herbert Behrens lead the Left Party in Lower Saxony. In: Welt.de. Retrieved April 5, 2017 . 
6. ↑ State chairman Pia Zimmermann resigned. In: Hannoversche Allgemeine. Retrieved September 10, 2018 . 
7. ↑ Lars Leopold becomes the new co-chairman of the Left. In: Hildesheimer Allgemeine Zeitung. Retrieved September 10, 2018 . 
8. ↑ THE LEFT. Lower Saxony regional association: European Parliament. In: dielinke-nds.de. Retrieved April 4, 2017 .