Linke on democracy and the state

The Left wants a parity law so that women make up at least half of the members of the state's parliaments. It argues that women have so far been underrepresented there.

There are fewer women than men in parliaments. The Left wants a law against that. At least half of the members should be women.

The law is meant to apply to the Bürgerschaft (state parliament), the city council of Bremerhaven and the district advisory councils. According to the platform, women are in the minority especially in local parliaments, but also in the Bundestag and the state parliament. The party sees equal participation of the genders as a precondition for democracy and justice.

The Left rejects compulsory service for young people. Instead, voluntary service programs should become more flexible, attractive and visible so that all young people have access to them.

Some people call for a mandatory service year for young people. The Left is against it. It wants to improve voluntary service instead. All young people should be able to do such a year if they want.

According to the platform, about 800 to 1,000 young people in Bremen and Bremerhaven do a voluntary year or federal voluntary service each year. The psychosocial counseling center for volunteers at the state working group on voluntary services should continue to be funded. The party also supports service learning, in which volunteering is tried out as part of school lessons.

The Left wants people without a German passport to receive full voting rights after five years of residence. In the party's view, anyone who lives here permanently and is affected by the laws should also have a say in them.

Many people in Bremen have no German passport. They are not allowed to vote. The Left wants to change that. Anyone who has lived here for five years should be allowed to vote.

According to the program, more than 100,000 of Bremen's roughly 670,000 residents do not hold German citizenship. They may vote neither for the state parliament nor for the Bundestag, although they have lived here for 15 years on average. The party also wants to strengthen migrant self-organization and migrants' political voice.

The Left wants to declare May 8 a public holiday in Bremen. It calls it the day of victory over fascism.

World War II ended in Europe on May 8, 1945. The Left wants this day to be a public holiday in Bremen. People would then have the day off.

May 8 marks the end of World War II in Europe in 1945. The platform calls it the day of victory over fascism. The demand is tied to the party's peace and remembrance policy.

The Left wants to recruit more staff for the administration, schools, daycare and nursing, and make public service more attractive financially. Collective pay settlements are to be passed on to civil servants in full.

The Left wants more people to work for the state. Bremen should train more people itself. Civil servants should get the same raises as other public employees. Jobs that are hard to fill should come with bonuses.

Plans include a skilled-worker initiative, substantially more training places and new dual-study programs, also part-time. Training and mandatory internships should be paid appropriately, the latter according to the standards of the DGB trade union youth. A commission with equal participation by the central staff council is to review pay grades and bonuses by 2025 so that Bremen does not fall behind other states. The staff representation law should be aligned with the Works Constitution Act on release time, while the staff councils' broad remit should remain. The Senate should agree on remote-work rules with staff representatives.

The Left wants a separate Bremen freedom of assembly law that strengthens the rights of demonstrators and assembly organizers. The ban on face coverings at protests should be dropped or at least reduced to an administrative offense.

The Left wants a new law for demonstrations in Bremen. It should protect the rights of participants. Police should have to cooperate with organizers. Covering your face at a protest should no longer be a crime.

The law is meant to set out participants' rights clearly. Police would be legally required to cooperate with organizers. The party wants the ban on concealing one's identity at assemblies struck. As a minimum, it proposes downgrading it from a criminal offense to an administrative one.

The Left wants citizens to be able to bring their own complaints before Bremen's state constitutional court. In addition, the word “race” is to be removed from the state constitution and replaced with a ban on racist discrimination.

Bremen has its own constitutional court. The Left wants ordinary people to be able to file cases there. The word “race” should be taken out of Bremen's constitution. It should instead ban racist discrimination.

Complaints before the Staatsgerichtshof (state constitutional court) are to be open to individuals in the state of Bremen. In the state constitution, the term “race” is to give way to a ban on discrimination for racist reasons. Both plans concern the state's constitution.

The Left wants to strengthen the Beiräte (district advisory councils) in Bremen's neighborhoods. They are to decide local matters themselves rather than just be consulted, get more budgets of their own, and be better equipped.

Bremen has district councils. These are elected groups for each part of the city. The Left wants to give them more power. They should decide things themselves and manage more money. Members should get tablets and fixed monthly payments.

Bremen is to debate whether the councils should become district assemblies like those in Hamburg or Berlin. Instead of per-meeting fees, the program proposes monthly lump sums that rise with inflation and do not count against SGB II benefits; members caring for children or relatives would get a supplement. Childcare, hybrid meetings, and livestreams of sessions are to be possible. Every district is to get its own local office with enough staff, and the term of office for its heads is to drop from ten to eight years. Further district budgets are to be added to the existing transport budget.

The Left wants better conditions for volunteer work. Funding applications are to become simpler, grants are to run longer than one year, and a shared house for volunteer organizations is to be created.

Many people in Bremen volunteer. The Left wants to make their work easier. Clubs should have less paperwork. Funding should be promised for more than one year. There should be a house for volunteers.

Projects and institutions are to be funded so that volunteers have permanent paid contact persons. Longer funding periods are meant to give social organizations planning security. The planned “engagement house” is to offer advice, training, knowledge sharing, and shared space and equipment. The party wants to make volunteer work in district councils and clubs more accessible to women. It values volunteering as long as it stays clearly separate from paid work.

The Left wants to reform Bremerhaven's city leadership. The mayor is to be elected directly by the people, and full-time department heads are to be chosen for professional qualification rather than by coalition quotas.

The Left wants to change Bremerhaven's city government. People should elect the mayor themselves. Department heads should be chosen for their skills. Party membership should not decide.

The party argues that direct election is the norm in almost all German cities and strengthens citizens' participation. It rejects the idea of turning full-time department heads into political appointees as unsuitable for a municipality. It considers abolishing the volunteer department heads worth discussing. The state parliament is to prevent changes in civil service law from curtailing the rights of citizens and of the city council.