Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany)

The Left Party (In German: Die Linkspartei., officially with a period at the end), formerly Party of Democratic Socialism (Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus, PDS) is a left-wing socialist political party in Germany. It is the legal successor to the stalinist Socialist Unity Party (SED), which dictatorially ruled the totalitarian German Democratic Republic until 1990. It is competing in Germany's September 2005 federal elections in alliance with the western Germany-based Labor and Social Justice Party. The party is under observation of the German intelligence service, which classifies it as left-extreme.

Left-extremism

In the Verfassungsschutzbericht of 2003, the policies of the party is referred to as Linksextremistische Bestrebungen, and it is stated that unter dem Aspekt einer möglichen Beeinträgchtigung der freiheitlichen demokratischen Grundordnung waren die Auseinandersetzungen in der "Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus" (PDS) zu einem neuen Parteiprogramm von besonderer Relevanz. Dieses wurde im Oktober 2003 beschlossen. Danach verfolgt die PDS weiterhin das Ziel, eine über die Grenzen der bestehenden Gesellschaft - nämlich des Kapitalismus - hinausweisende sozialistische Ordnung zu errichten und auf diesem Weg die aus ihrer Sicht Unfreiheit und Ausbeutung verursachenden Macht- und Eigentumsverhältnisse zu überwinden. Die PDS akzeptiere nach wie vor offen extremistische Kräfte in ihrer Partei und arbeitet mit in- und ausländischen Extremisten zusammen.

Background

The grassroots democracy movement that forced the dismissal of East German head of state Erich Honecker in 1989 also empowered a younger generation of reform politicians in the East German SED who looked to Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union as their model for political change. Reformers from the party's "third tier" rose to leadership, like authors Stefan Heym and Christa Wolf and human rights attorney Gregor Gysi, and by the end of 1989 the last hardline members of the party's Central Committee had resigned, followed by 95% of the SED's 2.3 million members. A new name, "Party of Democratic Socialism," was adopted to distance the reformed party from its communist past (after a brief transitory period as SED/PDS). By early 1990, the PDS was no longer a Marxist-Leninist party, though Marxist and communist minority factions continue to exist.

In federal elections

In the first all-German elections in 1990, the PDS won only 2.4% of the nationwide vote, but under a one-time exception to Germany's electoral law entered the Bundestag with 17 deputies led by Gysi, a charismatic and articulate politician. In the 1994 election, in spite of an anti-communist "Red Socks" campaign led by the then-ruling Christian Democrats aimed at scaring off eastern voters, the PDS increased its vote to 4.4 percent, won a plurality in four eastern districts, and re-entered the Bundestag with an enlarged caucus of 30 deputies. In 1998, the party reached the high-water mark in its fortunes by electing 37 deputies with 5.1% of the national vote, thus clearing the critical 5% threshold for guaranteed proportional representation and full parliamentary status. The party's future seemed bright, but it suffered from a number of weaknesses, not the least of which was its dependence on Gysi, considered by supporters and critics alike as a super-star in German politics who stood in stark contrast to a colorless general membership. Gysi's resignation in 2000 after losing a policy debate with party leftists soon spelled trouble for the PDS. In the 2002 election, the PDS vote sank back to 4.3%, and was able to seat only two deputies elected directly from their districts, Petra Pau and Gesine Lötzsch. Clearing neither of the electoral hurdles for entering Parliament (5% or three directly-elected deputies), the party lost its status as a parliamentary group, retaining just the two directly-elected deputies as its representatives in Parliament.

After the 2002 debacle, the PDS adopted a new program and re-installed a respected moderate, long-time Gysi ally Lothar Bisky, as chair. A renewed sense of self-confidence soon re-energized the party. In the 2004 elections to the European Parliament, the PDS won 6.1% of the vote nationwide, its highest total in a federal election. Its strength in the eastern German states continued to grow, where today it competes with the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats for first place. However, its low membership and voter support in western states continued to plague the party on the national level until it formed an electoral alliance with the Labor and Social Justice Party (WASG), a left group formed by dissident Social Democrats.

Alliance with the WASG

Election campaign 2005

In July, 2005, the PDS and the WASG agreed on terms for a combined ticket for the 2005 federal elections and pledged to unify the two parties in 2006 or 2007. According to the pact, the parties will not compete against each another in any district. WASG candidates, including the charismatic former Social Democratic leader, Oskar Lafontaine, will stand on the PDS electoral list. To symbolize the new relationship, the PDS changed its name to Left Party.PDS or The Left.PDS, with the letters "PDS" optional in western states. The alliance provides a strong electoral base in the east and benefits from WASG's growing voter potential in the west. Gregor Gysi has returned to public life and will share the spotlight with Lafontaine as co-leader of the Left Party caucus in the German Bundestag after the election. Polls show the unifed Left Party competing with the German Greens and the pro-business Free Democratic Party for the role of third-strongest party in the Bundestag. Alarmed by the Left's unexpected rise in the polls, Germany's mainstream politicians are describing Lafontaine and Gysi as "left populists" and "demagogues," and accuse the party of political extremism.

In state and local government

The Left Party is the Social Democratic Party's junior partner in the coalition governments of two German states, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the capital Berlin. Co-governing with the SPD has burnished the Left's reputation as a pragmatic, rather than ideological party. It remains strong in local government in eastern Germany, with more than 6,500 town councillors and 64 elected mayors. The party continues to win eastern voters by emphasizing political competence, but also profits from growing dissatisfaction with high unemployment and cutbacks in health insurance, unemployment benefits, and workers' rights. The party has a youth wing, known as 'solid - die sozialistische jugend.

Miscellaneous facts

• The Left Party is a co-founder of the European Left alliance of parties. In the European Parliament, it is the largest party in the European United Left/Nordic Green Left parliamentary group.
• Besides Lafontaine, a number of other prominent SPD defectors are standing for the Bundestag on the Left Party list, including the leader of Germany's Turkish minority, Hakki Keskin, and German Supreme Court justice Wolfgang Nesković.
• Two of the Left Party's leaders, Gregory Gysi and Lothar Bisky, are Jewish. Lafontaine is Roman Catholic, and the party's election manager, Bodo Ramelow, is Protestant.
• The party supports expanding partnership rights for same-sex couples and advocates elimination of Germany's tax on beer.
• A Left Party Member of the European Parliament, Feleknas Uca, was the world's only elected Yezidi politician until three were elected to the Iraqi legislature in 2005.
• For the European Parliament election, 2004, the Englishman Keith Barlow, living in Leipzig, was a PDS candidate.

Related articles

• Politics of Germany
• List of political parties in Germany
• Bundestag (Federal Assembly of Germany)

External links

• Left Party website in German
• Left Party newsletter in English
• 2005 Left Party platform in English
• Left Party on the rise in Germany

Further reading

• Thompson, Peter (2005) The Crisis of the German Left. The PDS, Stalinism and the Global Economy Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford. ISBN 1-57181-543-0
• Oswald, Franz (2002). The Party That Came Out of the Cold War : The Party of Democratic Socialism in United Germany. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0275977315
• Hough, Dan (2001). The Fall and Rise of the PDS in Eastern Germany (1st ed.). The University of Birmingham Press. ISBN 1-902459-14-8