Oscar Lafontaine resigns from the Left Party

The co-founder and former head of the German Left Party, Oskar Lafontaine, left the party. The 78-year-old made the announcement today in Saarbrücken. I wanted there to be a left-wing alternative to the politics of social insecurity and inequality on the political spectrum, which is why I co-founded the Left Party. “The left today has abandoned this claim,” La Fontaine said in a statement.

In March 1999, in a dispute with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Lafontaine resigned as head of the SPD and in 2005, after leaving the SPD, the West German Social and Labor Alternative Electoral Party (WASG) united with the East German Public Distribution System to form the Left . party, party. With his exit from the party, the party’s expulsion proceedings against La Fontaine in the Left Party were settled.

Additionally, La Fontaine ended his political career. With state elections in Saarland on March 27, he has turned his back on more than 50 years of active politics. Most recently, he has led the left-wing faction in the Saarland State Parliament since 2009.

The party leadership regrets leaving the party

Party leaders and left-wing factions expressed their regret at La Fontaine’s departure from the party. “As the founding president and longtime leader of the parliamentary group, Oscar Lafontaine has made a lasting contribution to the Left Party,” said party leaders Susan Hennig-Welso and Janine Whistler and parliamentary group leaders Amira Muhammad Ali and Dietmar Bartsch. “We believe his resignation was wrong and we regret that,” he added.