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The Week in Germany: Politics August 5, 2005 "Left Party" shakes political landscape The emergence of a new party led by two veteran left-wingers could transform Germany's current four-party system into a less predictable five-party one in planned Sept. 18 general elections, according to analysts.
The recently formed Linkspartei (Left Party) is an alliance between the political heirs to the communist party that once ruled East Germany and western-based defectors from Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's center-left Social Democrats (SPD). With a program that promises higher wages for workers and higher taxes on the rich, the group has thrown Germany's usual electoral math into disarray — even while it stands little chance of actually entering government. "It stands for almost nothing, and certainly it has no program to govern Germany — nor will it ever govern Germany," wrote the New York Times. "But it is a spoiler." Polls suggest the party is an equal opportunity spoiler, though, threatening to draw votes away from both the left and the right. It is expected to do especially well in parts of the formerly communist east, where unemployment is nearly twice as high as in the more prosperous west — and frustration and resentment are widespread. With 30% support in the east, the group recently moved ahead of the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) to become the most popular party in parts of the region. Nationwide, current polls show the party winning more than 10% of the vote, making it Germany's third-strongest political force behind the CDU and the SPD — and giving it a certain degree of leverage over the shape of a future government. The sudden rise of the Linkspartei has increased the chance that the neither the SPD nor the CDU will have the seats needed to form a coalition government, raising the possibility that the two parties could be forced into a "grand coalition" for the first time since the 1960s. Analysts have attributed part of the alliance's appeal to its charismatic leaders: Gregor Gysi, the gifted debater who heads the post-communist Party of Democratic Socialism, and Oskar Lafontaine, the provocative former SPD chairman who fell out with Schroeder in dramatic fashion just six months into his tenure as Finance Minister.
Yet even more important, many say, is the party's lone opposition to welfare reforms introduced by the ruling "Red-Green" coalition and supported to varying degrees by all four mainstream parties. Newspapers in Germany and across Europe have taken note of the party's populist appeal. "To many of those disappointed by Red-Green, let down by unification in the east or afraid for their livelihoods in the west, the new leftists appear a more novel address than the mainstream parties," wrote Hamburg's daily Abendblatt. Newsweek agreed, but suggested that the group's rise can also be seen as a symptom of a wider sense of disenchantment spanning much of Europe. "More than just capturing frustration with German joblessness and welfare cuts, the rise of the Linkspartei echoes a growing resentment across the Continent against mainstream politics, open markets and 'neoliberal' policies to boost economic growth," the newsweekly suggested. "In a sense, the Linkspartei is the German reflection of the French and Dutch 'no' votes against the EU constitution, with all their anti-establishment undertones." The conservative Berlin daily Die Welt meanwhile suggested that the party may end up playing a positive role, prodding mainstream parties to explain the need for reform more clearly than they have in the past. "The elections will accurately reveal the level of resistance to further reforms, with the new Linkspartei of Lafontaine and Gysi serving as a clearinghouse [for reform opponents]. "The movement that has sprung into motion will provide a useful finding," the paper continued. "On Election Day, one will be able to say what the German mentality is really about, what this country is capable of doing politically and what not. "But to make this finding really watertight, the traditional parties need to take the clearest positions they possibly can." Links:
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