Left party make big gains in German elections

Rather enthused with the success of the Left party in the recent German state elections. Conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel will be feeling less confident about the upcoming federal election in four weeks time, after some significant defeats in two of the three state ballots over the weekend.

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has lost its majority (31.2%) in the eastern state of Thrirrua. The Left party received 27.4% of the vote beating the SPD into third place on 18.5%. If the Left and the SPD are able to form a coalition there is a chance the Left's Bodo Ramelow will become the party's first ever Premier of a state.

In the West German state of the Saarland, home to Left party co-leader Oscar Lafontine, the Left got 21.3% of the vote, a big improvement on their 2004 result of 2.4%. With 24.5% for the SPD and 5.9% for the Greens, there is the potential to chuck the CDU out of another state.

The CDU did better in Saxony (40.2%) and will probably govern with the FDP(10%). In this state the Left (20.6%) got nearly twice the vote of the SPD (10.4%).

Germany is currently governed at the federal level by a grand coalition of the largest centre right party, the CDU/CSU and the historically centre-left SPD. In the upcoming federal election Merkel hopes to gain the numbers to spurn the SPD in favor of the free market FDP.

The Left party was formed in 2007 as a coalition between a breakaway group from the SPD, WASG, largely based in Western Germany, and the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) from the East. WASG included many trade unionists, and a former leader of the SPD, Oscar Lafontane, who is now co-leader of the Left. Its economic policy is not that much more radical than the policies of New Zealand's first Labour Government when it was elected in 1935. Central to the economic policy of the German Left party is: "a Keynesian use of state intervention to balance market forces. In the current election program, this includes socializing the entire banking system, outlawing non-transparent financial products, hedge funds, and venture capitalism, and restricting currency markets."

In many ways the low vote for the SPD in Sunday's elections is a continuation of the loss of support that occured under SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's administration, where he pushed the SPD towards more neoliberal economic policies and cut back the welfare state. Unfortunately, the current SPD leader Frank-Walter Steinmeir is regarded with suspicion by many on the left, given he was an architect of Schroder's right wing welfare and labour reforms.

The SPD has continued to refuse to form a federal coalition that involves the Left party, on the grounds that the PDS was once the old East German Communist Party. In the last federal election in 2005, a majority of Germans voted for a centre-left government, yet they got a centre-right Government instead because the SPD chose to form a government with the conservatives rather than deal with the left. Now the SPD risks loosing its brand from being in bed with the conservatives.

"On the federal level it's very clear, there will not be cooperation with the Left," said SPD head Franz Muentering after preliminary election results from Sunday announced.

Of course a better explanation for the SPD sniping, is that like other former social democratic parties that have embraced key principles of neo-liberalism, it just hates having competition to its left. The attitute of the German Greens towards the left has also been hostile, despite the Left highlighting the common policies of the two parties.

The SDP may fear the reaction of the CDU to a centre-left-left coalition, as the CDU runs hysterical scare campaigns against the prospect of a so called red-red coalition, highlighting the 'communist past' of the PDS and the Left party. I find it quite bizarre that large sections of the German media have bought into this neo-McCarthist nonsense and refer to the left as 'toxic' and the 'political pariah' of German politics.

It is time that someone called the CDU's bluff - most importantly because the CDU can't claim to have a perfect history either. One of the CDU precursor parties, the German National People's Party formed a coalition with the Nazis in 1931. As part of the short lived Government of National Concentration, the party supported Adolf Hitler as Chancellor and the Enabling Act which was the key step towards establishing Hitler's dictatorship. Another CDU forerunner, the Centre Party, more reluctantly supported the Enabling Act. To cap it all off, in December 1966 the CDU made a former Nazi the Chancellor of Germany. Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger was a former card carrying Nazi and worked in radio propaganda section of the Nazi Foreign Ministry. I don't wish to make strong comparisons here, only to demonstrate that perhaps those in glass houses should not be so ready to throw stones.

There must become a point where all the huffing and puffing attempting to associate the Left with the PDS communist past simply becomes stale and irrelevant. Given the passage of 20 years, it is close to the point where the political generation with that past has passed the torch to new representatives. Even those who were involved with the Socialist Unity Party in East Germany, such as Lothar Binksy, were from the younger generation who supported Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika. Binsky is now part of the moderate social democrat faction of the Left, and a co-leader of the party.

The fact that the SPD and the Left have been in coalition government together in Berlin since 2001 ought to cut the wind from the windbags.

For the record I greatly admire what the SPD managed to achieve in the years after World War I, where they created a welfare state well ahead of its time, despite the crippling economic burdens of the Treaty of Versillies. It also must be said the SPD were intollerant of their left even then. But the SPD can't continue to trade on its history while appeasing the neoliberals in its ranks.

Under a political squeeze from the Greens and the Left, the SPD has adopted some politices that we would be unlikely to see from New Zealand Labour at the moment, such as a small tax rise for high income earners and free tertiary education for a person's first degree. We are talking about continential Europe here - not the wannabe Anglo American wild west.

A coalition with the Left Party may have the effect of revitalising the SPD, in a similar way to the way the involvement of the New Zealand Alliance in the government in 1999-2002 gave the appearance of rehabilitating the Labour party from its rabid neoliberal 1980s. A SPD-Left coalition would also serve to rehabitate the Left from its proported past - perhaps thats just what the SPD are afraid of.

So next month I am hoping that Germany will once again give the combined forces of the The Left, The SPD and the Greens a majority of support. Lets hope the SPD learn the lesson from 2005 and remember whose side they are meant to be on.

It is possible left leaning German voters used these state elections to send a message to the SPD - the question is - are they listening?

Unfortunately the current polls seem to indicate a CDU/FDP government is more likely, with the FDP also doing well in Sunday's state polls. One poll showed the Left party on an all time high of 15%, 5% behind the SPD, with the Greens on 10%. The CDU/CSU/FDP together gained 49% support.

German grand coalition is formed despite Germans voting for a left wing government

It looks like the new government of Germany will be an "grand" coalition of the SPD and the centre right CDU/CSU parties, led by Angela Merkel as Chancellor.

This is a defeat for the current Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who pushed to keep his job in the advent of a grand coalition being formed. It now looks likely he will decline a cabinet post in favour of semi-retirement and the chance to spend more time with his daughter.

While cabinet positions are yet to be finalised, it appears the CDU and its Barvarian sister CSU will have eight cabinet posts - Merkel as chancellor, a minister of state at the chancellery, and the economy, interior, defence, agriculture, education and family ministries. The Social Democrats are also expected to have eight ministers in the new government, with the social democrats gaining foreign affairs, finance, justice, labour, health, transport, environment and international development.

The irony is that a majority of Germans actually voted for a centre-left government. A total of 51.1 percent of Germans voted for the three parties to the left of the center, the SPD, the Green party and the newly formed Left Party. Only 43.9 percent voted for the conservatives and the free-market liberal Free Democrats (FDP).

It is a shame the animosity of the SPD and the Greens towards the Left party have denied the German people what they voted for. While it has been widely reported that all three parties rejected any sort of deal, recently many Left party MPs said they would consider supporting a SPD/Green minority government if the SPD would make changes to its neo-liberal agenda. Oskar Lafontaine, the Left Party's designated parliamentary group leader, praised the SPD and Green party agendas and also implied that his party could possibly work with them. Sadly, the SPD and the Greens have only responded with more sniping.

The newly formed Left party, itself a coalition of disenfranchised former SPD members and the PDS (the party that grew out of the communist party) gained 54 seats. With their support the SPD and the Greens could continue to govern with a heathy 40 seat majority in the 614 seat parliament.

Larry Elliott, economics editor of the Guardian, argues the inconclusive vote in Germany is a rejection of the neo-liberal policies pursed by Gerhard Schröder, and would be pursued with even more vigour by Angela Merkel.
"The strong showing by Oskar Lafontaine's Left party is indicative of the deep suspicion German voters have of what to them smacks of a wholesale introduction of the neo-liberal US economic model. Put simply, Germans don't buy the idea - touted by both Mr Schröder and Ms Merkel - that the way to safeguard Germany's post-war social democratic model is to dismantle it."

The mere fact that the SPD would prefer to form a coalition with the conservatives says a lot about the present direction of the SPD. With Merkel as Chancellor the right wing of the SPD will continue with the neo-liberal reforms they wanted to do anyway, and may attempt to blame Merkel for any fallout.

But it is the new Left party that has the most to gain from the CDU-SPD grand coalition. Only a few days ago, the left wing of the SPD were telling Schröder they would never work with Merkel as Chancellor. SPD deputy parliamentary leader Ludwig Stiegler, has refused to vote for Merkel and influential SPD leftwinger Andrea Nahles warned on Thursday against a deal where the SPD traded the chancellery for cabinet posts and policy concessions, which is exactly the kind of deal the SPD have made today.

In order to be Chancellor Merkel still needs to survive a secret ballot of MPs. It is possible a large number of SPD rebels could ignore the whip and vote for Schröder or another SPD candidate. In this situation the Left party could also tactically vote for Schröder, along with the Greens and give Merkel her first taste of defeat.

Nils Diederich, a professor of political science at Berlin's Free University, told the Guardian.
"If the SPD voted for Merkel this would be tantamount to the party shooting itself in the foot. Some 4%-5% of the SPD's core voters would desert it. They would join the Left party instead. It is going to be extremely difficult for the SPD's leadership to sell Mrs Merkel to its own supporters."

With the Greens also set to go into opposition I hope they can mend fences with the Left party. Especially when Oskar Lafontaine claims he could "sign the Green's election manifesto as it is. It's not far from the party that I currently represent". If the Greens and the Left party touted the dream of a coalition without the SPD, this could provide a strong incentive for the SPD to move back in a real Red/Green direction. A lesson for New Zealand perhaps :)

Categories: Germany, Politics, Election, Coalition, Left Party, Greens, Schröder, Merkel