Linken-Chef Jan van Aken has rejected accusations that his party wants to open up to the “political center”. “I don’t know if I want to be in the political center. I want to be here for the majority of people” he said at the weekend’s Left Party conference in Chemnitz to ARD’s Hauptstadtstudio.
“And what we call the political center right now doesn’t care about the people. For example, during the election campaign, we knocked on 600,000 doors. And the one big problem the people told us about was the high cost of living. Now, look in the coalition agreement – they don’t even mention it – not a single word on 144 pages” van Aken criticized.
“This center-right coalition doesn’t even recognize the most pressing problem of the majority of the population. That’s why I say: no, to Merz – I always have this image – when he flies on his private jet to Sylt, he’s up there in the clouds. He doesn’t know how it is down here” the Left Party leader said.
When asked about the cooperation with the CDU, as a two-thirds majority was needed on the day of the Chancellor election, van Aken said: “Exactly. They need us – that’s why: the CDU’s incompatibility resolution is irrelevant to me. So, if the CDU wants to talk to us, they have to scrap it. I don’t need that.”
“We said on Tuesday that it was completely irrelevant to us whether we were elected on Tuesday or Wednesday. What was important to us was to have clarity quickly because: imagine if he would have failed in the second round, then a search for a new person would have been necessary immediately. Merz would never have become Chancellor again” the Left Party politician explained.