In elections that took place in Hamburg on 1 March, Kurdish politician Cansu Özdemir was elected as Die Linke group co-chair.

Die Linke (Left Party) held its first group meeting in Hamburg yesterday, electing the Kurdish politician Cansu Özdemir as the co-chair of the Die Linke group in the Hamburg parliament. Özdemir took 8 votes of the 11 parliamentarians, while 2 of them abstained and 1 voted against. Sabine Boeddinghaus has been elected as the other co-chair.

Cansu Özdemir was born in 1988 and graduated in 2009. She became politically active at 16 and worked as a reporter for the Kurdish newspaper Yeni Özgür Gündem. She also took part in activities of the women’s associations in Hamburg and became the spokesperson of the Die Linke group in the previous period in Hamburg.

On 13 January 2015, the Hamburg Public Prosecutor’s Office sent a notice to both the head of the Hamburg Parliament, Carola Veit, and Die Linke deputy Cansu Özdemir, informing them that an investigation was being launched regarding the two for sharing on Facebook on 13 November 2014 the picture of the Die Linke deputies with a PKK flag.