In October 1989, facing increasing unpopularity, the SED replaced long-time leader Erich Honecker with Egon Krenz, who began a program of limited reforms, including the legalisation of opposition groups.

Seeking to change its image, the party expelled most of its former leadership, including Honecker and Krenz; the new government negotiated with opposition groups and arranged free elections.

The party chose Modrow as its lead candidate for the 1990 East German general election but was decisively defeated, finishing in third place with 16.4% of votes cast.

The PDS was excluded from further political developments due to the aversion of the opposition, now in power, which considered it essentially tied to the Communist regime despite its change of name.

[8] After debuting with a meagre 2.4% nationwide in the 1990 German federal election immediately after reunification, the PDS gained popularity throughout the 1990s as a protest party in the eastern states.

Despite electoral successes, the PDS faced internal strife due to ideological disputes, a chronic decline in membership, and a near-complete lack of support in the western states, which has been home to 85% of Germany's population.

The alliance's profile was greatly boosted when former federal Minister of Finance Oskar Lafontaine, who had left the SPD after the North Rhine-Westphalia election, joined WASG in June.

He claimed to have misspoken, but in an article published in Die Welt, a group of prominent German writers accused him of deliberately appealing to xenophobic and far-right voters.

The electoral collapse of the Social Democratic Party in the federal election on 27 September 2009 saw The Left's vote surge to 11.9%, increasing its representation in the Bundestag from 54 to 76 seats, just under half as large as the SPD's parliamentary group.

Just a few weeks later, the SPD and Greens invited the Left to support their candidate for the 2010 presidential election, former Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records Joachim Gauck.

[14] They also rejected the conservative Christian Wulff, favourite of Chancellor Angela Merkel,[15] instead putting forward their own nominee, television journalist Luc Jochimsen.

[17] SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel described The Left's position as "bizarre and embarrassing," stating that he was shocked that they would declare Joachim Gauck their enemy due to his investigation of GDR injustice.

The party suffered substantial losses in its traditional eastern heartland, but made a net gain nationally thanks to an improvement in the western states, rising to 9.2% of votes (up 0.6 points).

In August 2020, Kipping and Riexinger announced they would step down as co-chairs in accordance with party regulations stating that no position should be held by the same person for more than eight years.

[38] The Left won 4.9% of votes and 39 seats in the 26 September federal election, its worst showing since its official formation in 2007, narrowly failing to cross the 5% electoral threshold.

[47] At the party congress in June, incumbent Janine Wissler was re-elected as leader, while co-chair of The Left in the European Parliament (GUE/NGL) group Martin Schirdewan was elected as Hennig-Wellsow's successor.

[51][52] In the 2023 Hessian state election, The Left were wiped out after achieving 3.1% of the vote, thus losing their 9 seats due to falling short of the 5% threshold needed for representation.

[56] Heidi Reichinnek and Sören Pellmann, who previously ran against Wissler and Schirdewan for the federal leadership, announced their intention to contest against the pro-leadership duo of Clara Bünger and Ates Gürpinar.

During the joint party convention with the Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative in March 2007, a document outlining political principles was agreed on.

Further economic reforms supported by the party include solidarity and more self-determination for workers, a ban on hydraulic fracturing, the rejection of privatization, and the introduction of a federal minimum wage,[75] and more generally the overthrow of property and power structures in which, citing Karl Marx's aphorism, "man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence.

"[79] The Left criticised Germany's defense plan with Saudi Arabia, which has been waging war in Yemen and has been accused of massive human rights violations.

Lothar Bisky stated the council would "focus on the development of the party, allied and international issues, the history of the left and possible consequences for the socialist program."

[89][92] However, starting from 2015, the party underwent an internal realignment due to the preeminence of Sahra Wagenknecht, who advocated a return to a fundamentally working-class focus and populist positions in the wake of the European refugee crisis and rise of the Alternative for Germany.

[99] In addition to the recognised platforms, a number of smaller groups have aligned with The Left and its predecessors, such as the Trotskyist Socialist Alternative (SAV), though the membership applications of some of its leaders, including Lucy Redler, were initially rejected.

They also noted a generational turnover in the composition of the party: a quarter of its membership had joined in the previous two years, and this cohort disproportionately comprised young people, students, and those in large cities.

They made further rapid gains during the subsequent election campaign: following the CDU's acceptance of AfD support for its immigration bills, The Left reported a total of 71,277 members on 3 February, the highest number since 2010.

[138] Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizière subsequently announced that none of The Left's Bundestag members would be surveilled, even those affiliated with the factions considered extremist by the Verfassungsschutz.

[154] In 2011, Bundestag deputy and later party co-leader Katja Kipping stated that she believed The Left needed "a double strategy [of] social-ecological restructuring plus left-wing populism" to become attractive to voters.

"[155] The Left's position as the successor of the PDS and SED has made it subject to significant controversy and criticism, as well as claims that the party is sympathetic to the former GDR.

[159] The Left's state leader André Hahn claimed that Gauck did not deliver an "appropriate or balanced speech", arguing he had "an absolutely one-sided view of the GDR.