Linke on democracy and the state

The Left wants to reduce bureaucracy to relieve public administration and craft businesses. Authorities would carry out only spot checks, and in return penalties and fines for violations would rise.

The Left wants less paperwork for offices and businesses. Authorities should no longer check everything, only some cases. Anyone who breaks the rules should pay a higher fine. Funding requests should count as approved after six weeks.

The program justifies the cuts with staff shortages in public administration and the growing workload for craft businesses. Until authorities are able to process applications on time, funding applications should count as approved if the review takes longer than six weeks. Craft businesses would get support in administrative procedures. Rules are to be explained clearly, including through free training courses. At the same time, the Left states that markets need rules.

The Left calls for a state commission to critically examine the work of the Treuhandanstalt (the agency that privatized East German state enterprises) after 1990. In the party's view, the Treuhand sold off public assets and contributed to deindustrialization and mass unemployment in the East.

After 1990, the Treuhand sold or closed the companies of East Germany. Many people in the East lost their jobs. The Left calls this an injustice. It wants a state commission to examine it closely.

The platform sides with East Germans who point out mistakes in the unification process. Among these it counts the lack of a joint new constitution, the sale of companies by the Treuhand and the replacement of leadership personnel after 1990. It cites surveys in which many people in Saxony say they feel like second-class citizens. As ongoing inequality it names a median wage 600 euros below the national average and lower wealth.

The Left wants East Germans to be adequately represented in leadership roles wherever the state decides on appointments. It also wants Saxony and eastern Germany to get a fair share of new federal agencies and research institutions.

East Germans rarely hold top jobs. The Left wants to change that. The state should put more East Germans in leading roles. More federal offices should also move to the East.

According to the platform, East Germans are still underrepresented in top positions, especially in business, the judiciary and academia. Where the state itself decides, meaning in politics, public administration, the courts and academia, their share of leadership roles should rise. Federal agencies and research institutions should be distributed fairly to the East. The planned Zukunftszentrum für Deutsche Einheit (Future Center for German Unity) in Halle should give East Germans' views and interests a hearing.

The Left wants better working conditions, more co-determination and more new recruits in Saxony's public service. The background, according to the platform, is that more than 40,000 employees will leave by 2030.

Many state employees will retire soon. The Left wants to win new people. They should be paid well and have more say. Trainees working for the state should also get better support.

Collective bargaining results should be applied to state civil servants without delay and at the same level, and promotions should be fairer and gender-equitable. A commission should start by 2026 at the latest to determine staffing needs through 2040, and the "Personalpool Demografie" (demographic staffing pool) should grow significantly. Training by the state should be managed centrally at the interior ministry or the state chancellery, with enough dormitory places, Wi-Fi and shuttle links to remote sites. Also planned are more continuing education, easier lateral entry, more staff with a migration background and better protection against hostility and violence.

The Left wants a law on senior citizens' participation and senior councils in every municipality and county. Older people are also to get more meeting places, digital training and accessible public spaces.

Older people should have a say in politics. The Left wants a special law for this. Every town should have a council for older people. There should be more places to meet to fight loneliness. Older people should get courses for phones and computers.

Members of the councils are to receive an expense allowance. Accessibility in public space is to be required by law and funded, especially in transport, culture, local services and health care. Meeting opportunities are to be created particularly on weekends. Alongside digital services, analog options are to remain, above all in public administration. All counties and independent cities are to have elder care plans and care coordinators, along with more affordable age-appropriate housing.

The Left wants to give students and staff more say at universities. Academic bodies would have four-way parity, meaning equal voting weight for the four member groups, and elected bodies would gain more powers.

Students and staff should have more say at universities. All four groups should have equal votes in the committees. Students should also sit in the leadership. The university council should only give advice.

The rectorate would include student vice-rectors. Students would receive an attendance fee for committee work. The senate and faculty council would be strengthened in relation to the executive bodies. The university council would become a purely advisory board. Target agreements with the ministry would be based on graduate numbers and confirmed by the senate, and the state parliament would adopt the university development plan.

The Left wants to sharply reduce the number of signatures required for citizens' motions and referendum petitions in Saxony. Thresholds for local motions, petitions and referendums in counties, cities and towns are to fall as well. The platform argues that Saxony has the highest hurdle for citizen-initiated legislation in Germany.

The Left wants more direct democracy in Saxony. Citizens should find it easier to vote on laws themselves. Fewer signatures should be needed for that. This should also apply in cities and towns.

A citizens' motion (Volksantrag) would need 20,000 signatures, which the platform describes as cutting the requirement in half. A referendum petition (Volksbegehren) would need signatures from five percent of those eligible to vote in the last state election. Citizens' motions could also address general political questions, not just bills. The platform also calls for an early admissibility check, free advice from the responsible ministry, voter information booklets, and a right for initiatives to speak and be heard. At the local level, thresholds for residents' motions, citizens' petitions and local referendums are to be lowered further.

The Left wants to replace the current Petitions Committee Act with a new petitions law that allows online petitions and public hearings. It also wants the state's Transparency Act reviewed quickly and extended to municipalities and publicly owned companies. In the platform's view, current petition law does not make citizens' influence visible enough.

A petition is a request or complaint sent to the state parliament. The Left wants a new law for this. People should be able to file petitions online too. The government should have to answer quickly. Public offices should also be more open about their decisions.

Petitions could also be filed orally, in sign language or in Braille, and a public online platform would allow debate. Public petitions that reach a certain threshold would give petitioners a right to a public hearing. The state government would have to respond within four weeks, or seven days in urgent cases, and report to parliament within six weeks on what it has done. The petitions committee would get a hardship fund for people who are in economic distress through no fault of their own. The platform also calls for a permanent advice center on citizen participation and for municipalities and companies with public ownership to be covered by the Transparency Act.

The Left wants to add an anti-fascism clause to Saxony's constitution that obliges all state bodies to push back the far right. It also calls for permanent funding of anti-racism initiatives, tougher prosecution of far-right violence, and a documentation center on the NSU terror group.

The Left wants to write anti-fascism into Saxony's constitution. Then all public offices would have to work against the far right. Projects against racism should get lasting funding. Far-right violent offenders should be pursued more strictly. The far-right scene should have no weapons.

According to the platform, the AfD, which it calls the parliamentary arm of the far right, should also be fought with every means available to the state. The funding program "Weltoffenes Sachsen" (Open-Minded Saxony) is to continue permanently with sufficient money, and a state democracy promotion law is to protect the independence of civil society groups. Victim counseling and mobile advice services are to be put on a permanent footing, and the state's overall strategy against right-wing extremism is to be developed further. The state should help municipalities prevent neo-Nazi concerts, far-right marches and property purchases by far-right groups. The platform also calls for an NSU documentation center in Chemnitz and Zwickau, training for administrators, police, the judiciary and teachers, and a full-time antisemitism commissioner at the State Chancellery.

The Left wants to require accessible polling places by law and have the state help pay for them. Municipalities are to have full-time inclusion officers and volunteer inclusion councils. The platform points out that many barriers make political participation harder for people with disabilities.

People with disabilities should be able to vote more easily. Polling places should be free of barriers. A law should require this. Political information should be available in easy language. Towns should have officers for inclusion.

Political information and education are to be accessible and available in easy-to-read language. Existing disability officers would get a broader remit, and the inclusion councils would consist mainly of people with disabilities. The state advisory council is to receive more powers and resources. The right to participate is to be anchored more firmly in the Inclusion Act and in the municipal and county codes. Together with the State Agency for Civic Education, a specialist office for inclusive civic education is to be set up.

The Left wants young people aged 16 and over to be able to vote in local and state elections and in referendums. This is meant to give young people's interests more weight in politics. In the long run, the party aims for a right to vote with no age limit.

The Left wants people in Saxony to vote from age 16. This should apply to local and state elections. It should also apply to referendums. Later there should be no age limit at all.

The program treats the move to 16 as a first step. In the long term, the right to vote is to apply to everyone regardless of age. The party wants to continue this debate with social and political actors and in parliament.

The Left wants to set up youth participation forums in municipalities and at the state level that carry out their own projects and have a say in political bodies. Involving children and young people is to become mandatory under the municipal code.

The Left wants youth forums in towns and at the state level. Young people meet there and plan their own projects. They should be allowed to speak and make proposals in politics. Towns should have to involve children and young people.

The forums are to take place regularly and be open to all young people in a municipality. Politicians and administrations are to provide rooms and organizational advice but not dictate content or methods. The forums get their own budget to spend freely. At the state level, an overall strategy for child and youth participation is to be created. Section 47a of the Saxon Municipal Code is to include a duty to involve young people, following Schleswig-Holstein, and as in Baden-Württemberg young people themselves are to be able to set up participation bodies. The party also pledges to work for implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Left wants to refocus the training of lawyers and prison staff and create more positions at the courts. A selection committee would decide on hiring judges. More staff is meant to speed up proceedings.

The Left wants to change training in the justice system. A committee should choose new judges. Courts should get more staff. Then trials go faster.

Training is to give more weight to restorative justice, meaning repair between offender and victim, to the victim's perspective, to avoiding imprisonment and to resolving conflicts outside the courts. For prison staff, the focus is to be on rehabilitation and alternative forms of custody. Law studies are to return to Dresden University of Technology. Additional positions are to be created and filled in all areas of Saxony's courts.

The Left wants foreign nationals living in Saxony to be able to vote in local and state elections. The condition would be two years of residence in Germany.

The Left wants foreigners in Saxony to have the right to vote. They should be able to vote in their town and in state elections. To do so, they must have lived in Germany for two years.

The party argues that anyone who lives in Saxony should have a say in politics. The right to vote would apply in municipalities as well as in elections to the state parliament. It would cover all foreign residents regardless of nationality.