People's Democracy

GERMANY ELECTION

Major Gains For The Left Party.PDS

Following are excerpts from a statement issued by the Left Party.PDS International Department in Berlin on September 20, 2005 regarding the outcome of the Germany elections.

These elections have been called by the German Federal president at the initiative of chancellor Schröder one year before the term of the ‘red green’ government ended. The chancellor saw in this advancement a last chance to receive the voters’ mandate to stay in power. SPD and Greens made their “reform” of the German economic and social systems the focal point of their campaign strategy, presenting it as without an alternative. They promised their parties and their voters a continuation of their politics. The conservative CDU/CSU and the liberal FDP answered with an even more neo-liberal offer in economic and tax policies.

Schröder’s initiative was a surprise attack on his political opponents, designed to prevent them from unfolding alternative offers by way of extremely short campaign period. It was especially to target the two formations of the German Left – the PDS and the Election Alternative for Employment and Social Justice (WASG) – the latter newly founded on the basis of last year’s strong protest movement against Schröder’s policies. But within a mere three months, the two organisations managed to organise their cooperation to avoid taking from each other the chance to overcome the five per cent barrier and enter parliament. The agreement of their leading bodies to merge into a united political party was not possible to realise in such a short time. Therefore, the PDS changed its name to Left Party with the possible appendix PDS and opened its candidates’ lists for representatives of the WASG and other personalities of the Left.

The conservative CDU/CSU and the liberal FDP fought a confrontational campaign attacking all steps of the red green government brought about partly with their cooperation. Frightened by the large response the Left Party was receiving among the public, SPD and Greens started a Left-wing rhetoric, promising minor corrections of their policies, attacking the plans of their bourgeois opponents to further sharpen the anti-social “reforms” started by them. Sometimes the campaign looked like a fight between a virtual red green opposition against a virtual conservative liberal government, leaving the public more and more confused. When the campaign started, most opinion polls saw the conservative CDU/CSU nearing an absolute majority, the SPD was down to under 30  per cent, the Left Party stood at about 4 per cent. The conservative and liberal camp was regarded by most observers as the potential winner.

The results of these elections have belied the forecasts of virtually all institutes and media. Unexpectedly, the losers were the two big parties. The red-green government was voted out, but their conservative-liberal rivals were not voted in either. Thus the German voters have clearly given a stop sign to the neo-liberal, anti-social politics of chancellor Schröder as well as of his conservative rival Angela Merkel, who explicitly wanted to carry them on in a sharpened version. The smaller parties could either stabilise or considerably strengthen their positions. The turnout, predicted by the polls to be much higher than in 2002, was 77.7 per cent –– 1.4 per cent lower than in 2002.

The results were met with open disappointment by the entrepreneurs associations and by those right-wing governments abroad which had hoped for a thorough change of government in Germany.

Although the conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union CDU/CSU came in as the strongest party, they missed their aim to form a right-wing coalition with the liberal FDP. Their result of 35.2 per cent vote and 225 seats (of the overall 613) is the third lowest in the history of the party – a further reduction of 2002 defeat by 3.3 per cent of the vote and 23 seats. Some of the steps of their chancellor candidate Angela Merkel – announcement of VAT increase as well as the nomination of an economics professor, known for defending a flat tax of 25 per cent for everybody, as future finance minister confirmed the fears of potential voters of an even more reckless economic and social politics under her government.

Disparaging remarks of CDU/CSU leaders, including Bavarian prime minister, Edmund Stoiber on the East Germans cost the party further votes in that region. Even these outbursts could not prevent Stoiber’s CSU from falling to a historic low in his native Bavaria. It got only 49.3 per cent, losing more than 9 per cent since 2002. With the lead over the SPD being so tiny, it is unclear whether Merkel will be able to form a majority government coalition.

SPD’s WORST PERFORMANCE

The governing Social Democratic Party SPD has got one of the worst results in its history. It has been further weakened in comparison with the 2002 elections it won with a narrow margin. Now with 34.3 per cent of the vote and 222 seats, it came in second with a loss of 4.2 per cent and 29 seats. This way Red Green missed by far their declared aim to renew their governing alliance. Nevertheless in the final phase of the campaign the SPD managed to make up 10 per cent. It became the strongest party in all 6 landers of Eastern Germany. The SPD lost voters mainly to the Left Party and to the category of non-voters. By his intense campaign of reckless Left demagogy, chancellor Schröder managed to come close to his conservative rivals’ poor result, but could not overtake them. Nevertheless, he has announced his intention to form a coalition.

The liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) is among the winners of this vote. Being rated low in the polls, it received 9.8 per cent and 61 seats – an increase of 2.4 per cent and 14 seats from 2002 – making it the third party in the new Bundestag. This party, which went into the elections as a coalition partner of CDU/CSU, nevertheless spoke out against Merkel’s plan of a 2 per cent VAT increase. Right-wing voters opposed to this step gave their second (party) vote to the FDP in big numbers, to strengthen their position in the coalition, thus weakening the CDU. The FDP has ruled out taking part in a so-called traffic light coalition with SPD and Greens.

By a skilful campaign, the Green Party could avoid being sanctioned as hard as the SPD for the politics of the red green government. With 8.1 per cent vote and 51 seats, they are now the smallest party in parliament.

The Left Party.PDS is the winner of these early elections. Under difficult conditions, with a new partner, fighting all the other parties and large parts of the media, it reached its main goal to enter parliament with its own group. The party could more than double its result of 4 per cent vote in 2002. The 8.7 per cent vote and 54 seats it received are an increase of 4.7 per cent and 52 seats from 2002 outcome. The best news is that the co-operation with the WASG worked fully, bringing about a result of a new quality, going far beyond the sum of the two organisations’ expected individual scores. Highly important is the overcoming of the five per cent hurdle in most of the country, also in 6 of the 10 landers of Western Germany. The only two PDS deputies who won in 2002 – Petra Pau and Gesine Lötzsch – won their constituencies in Berlin again. The third direct mandate was taken by Gregor Gysi also in Berlin. 30 deputies have been elected in the East, 24 in the West of the country.

This election has changed political life in Germany. For the first time since the 1950s, there is a nationwide political force to the left of the SPD. The Left Party. PDS will continue fighting the dismantling of the German welfare state, the redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich, the sending of German troops into military action abroad. As Gregor Gysi stated at a press conference after the vote, the party will support neither the neo-liberal politics of Schröder, nor of Merkel. Party chair Lothar Bisky, speaking for the National Executive Board, has proposed to the new parliamentary group to elect Gregor Gysi and Oskar Lafontaine their co-chairs.

The Left Party.PDS has not reached its goal to become the third force in Bundestag and the strongest force in the East of the country. The party, the only one, whose programme has included many demands of trade unions, social and alterglobalist movements, will give the resistance to neo-liberalism and militarisation of foreign policy a strong voice in parliament, thus increasing its effect. It will be supported by the actions of the movements, which are expected to develop and grow, given the announced plans of all the other Bundestag parties.

The Third Session of the 9th Congress of the Left Party. PDS has been convened on December 10-11, 2005 in Dresden. There, political and organisational questions of the party’s further development shall be discussed. Practical steps to push forward the merger of the Left Party. PDS with the WASG will go ahead as planned. This will be a pluralistic party bringing together the different outlooks and experience of reformed communists, Left social democrats, trade unionists, alterglobalists and other personalities of the Left; of politically active people from the East and West of Germany – a historic process which may be of interest beyond the German borders.

The question of the future German government is open. There are three main variants: so-called street-light-coalitions of SPD, Greens and FDP or CDU/CSU, FDP and Greens as well as a grand coalition of SPD and CDU/CSU. Be it how it may, the Left Party.PDS will get a good chance to win more profile as the only consistent opposition force to the neo-liberal orientation of the German political class.