Die Linke elected Ines Schwerdtner and Luigi Pantisano as new co-chairs at its party congress in Potsdam. Schwerdtner received nearly 86 percent and Pantisano 53 percent of the votes.
The 46-year-old member of parliament Luigi Pantisano succeeds Jan van Aken, who did not run again for health reasons. Pantisano stated in a speech that he wanted to polarize. He said there was no difference between the CDU, which makes fascist policy, and the AfD.
Upon inquiry Pantisano qualified his words. He told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur that the formulation was abbreviated. The point was that parties like the CDU were adopting the AfD's wrong policies.
The new leadership announced plans to organize protests in the coming weeks against social reforms and higher defense spending. Die Linke now has around 126,000 members.
