{news} Fw: USGP-INT New Left Party in Germany?

[Justine McCabe]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Feinstein" <mfeinstein at feinstein.org>
To: <usgp-int at gp-us.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 6:20 AM
Subject: USGP-INT New Left Party in Germany?


> http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1614248,00.html
>
> Germany's New Left Threatens Schröder
>
> Dream team? Gysi (l.) and Lafontaine might lead the left
>
> With two former media darlings looking to lead them into battle, Germany's 
> newly allied leftists are hoping for major gains in the election. But how 
> much can they really bite off?
>
> In the run-up to this fall's expected federal elections, Germany's 
> political left will rail against Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's labor and 
> welfare reform packages in their bid to storm back into the Bundestag. But 
> at the moment, they're pre-occupied with much smaller things, namely, what 
> to call themselves.
>
> The founding of the Election Alternative for Social Justice (WASG) as a 
> reaction to Schröder's reform packages, has been spearheaded by former 
> finance minister and political star Oskar Lafontaine. Schröder's most 
> prominent critic from the left is looking to form a political alliance 
> with the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor to East 
> Germany's communist party which remains the third-strongest voice in the 
> country's eastern states.
>
> Over the weekend, the PDS, eager to get another shot at entering the 
> Bundestag after failing to get enough votes in 2002, floated the 
> "Democratic Left - PDS" as a possible name for the alliance. But many 
> leftist stalwarts in the western part of the country are skeptical of the 
> PDS, which is still viewed as an eastern German party.
>
> "We know that the PDS doesn't always sound good," in the West, PDS chief 
> Lothar Bisky acknowledged.
>
> Good chances -- if it takes off
>
> This coming weekend, Bisky, former PDS star and media darling Gregor Gysi 
> and other party officials will meet with Lafontaine in an effort to reach 
> an agreement on the name.
>
>  The potential east-west alliance has good chances if Schröder's wish to 
> call federal elections this fall is granted by Germany's president and the 
> Bundestag. A recent poll by public broadcaster ZDF said 18 percent of the 
> population would consider voting for a leftist alliance.
>
> Dissatisfaction with Schröder's labor market reform program, dubbed Hartz 
> IV, has plunged his government into a crisis. Staggering losses suffered 
> by his Social Democrats in state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia on 
> May 22 prompted Schröder to take the unusual tactic of calling general 
> elections, scheduled for 2006, one year early.
>
> Third-largest party?
>
> Analysts are bleak about his chances against the opposition Christian 
> Democratic Union and the FDP, their likely coalition partners in a new 
> government. Polls show the SPD getting only 35 percent of the vote, with a 
> strong leftist alliance possibly peeling even more percentage points away. 
> A team combining Gysi and Lafontaine has made many on the left salivate at 
> the prospects of leapfrogging the Green Party, currently junior coalition 
> partners in Schröder's government, to become the country's third-biggest 
> party.
>
>  But the new left is anything but solid, say observers and party members. 
> The WASG will find its voters by criticizing Schröder's reform course as 
> overly harsh, and contrary to social democratic tradition. The PDS has 
> traditionally won support from disgruntled East Germans who embrace its 
> criticism of capitalism.
> "We are unified in the rejection of the government's social policies and … 
> Hartz IV, but that's about it," said Petra Pau, a PDS leader in Berlin.
>
> Whatever the outcome of this weekend's talks, the PDS has already reached 
> one goal: after three years in which they disappeared from the national 
> political stage, people are once again talking about them.
>
>
> ---
> | Sent via usgp-int
> | To unsubscribe, please send a message to usgp-int-request at gp-us.org
> | with ONLY unsubscribe in the message
> ---
>