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Bernd Riexinger (born 30 October 1955 in Leonberg) is a German politician of the Left Party. He was named co-chairman of the party, together with Katja Kipping, on 2 June 2012.
Career
A banker by profession, Riexinger was on the works council of Leonberger Bausparkasse from 1980 to 1990. In 1991 he became a trade union official. Riexinger is a member of the Initiative for networking between trade union leftists and is active in the Social Forum movement in Germany.
Politician
In 2003, Riexinger was among the initiators of mass protests against the Agenda 2010 of the federal government at that time.
On 30 May 2012, Riexinger announced that he would run for the position of chairman of The Left, and on 2 June 2012 he was elected alongside Katja Kipping, winning 53.5% of the delegates' votes. He was elected ahead of second-placed candidate Dietmar Bartsch. Up until this point Riexinger had been executive director of the Stuttgart division of the trade union ver.di, as well as a member of the executive board of the Left Party in Baden-Württemberg. He had also been a member of the interim executive board of the Left Party in Baden-Württemberg, and previously of the executive board of the party Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative (which became part of The Left in 2007) in Baden-Württemberg. On 10 May 2014 he was overwhelmingly reelected along with Katja Kipping as chairman of The Left with 89% of the votes by a national party conference.
Unlike his co-chair Katja Kipping, he is not a member of the Bundestag or even one of the state parliaments.