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Germany: Die Linke, Hesse and the `super election’ year

By Duroyan Fertl
January 29, 2009 -- Germany kicked off a “super election year” on January 18 when voters in the western German state of Hesse returned to the polls for the second time in twelve months. The new election had become necessary after months of negotiations to form a coalition government collapsed late last year, when four parliamentary members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) rebelled against a plan to form government with the assistance of the far-left party, Die Linke.
The SPD had benefited in last year’s poll from voter rejection of the racist scapegoating and law-and-order politics of the ruling right-wing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Prime Minister Roland Koch. Despite its vote, however, the SPD still lacked the numbers to form government, even with its preferred allies, the Green Party, and the SPD’s leader in Hesse, Andrea Ypsilanti, turned to Die Linke for support.
In the lead-up to the election, however, Ypsilanti had bowed to pressure from SPD hardliners and promised not to deal with the Die Linke. Many in the dominant right wing of the SPD have an almost irrational dislike of the left-wing party, partly fuelled by the fact that it formed in out of a fusion of the Party for Democratic Socialism (PDS – the successor to the former East Germany or German Democratic Republic’s ruling party, the Socialist Unity Party) with the WASG (Electoral Alternative for Social Justice and Jobs) – a group made up of radical trade unionists and breakaways from the SPD, included former SPD chairperson Oskar Lafontaine.
Nevertheless,
when neither the SPD nor the CDU were able to form government with their
preferred alliance partners – the Greens for the SPD and the radical
free-marketeers of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) for the CDU – Ypsilanti
backflipped on her promise in order to win government, securing an agreement
with the Greens and Die Linke, but losing support in her own party.
All attempts to form government having fallen through, the Hesse parliament was left with little choice but to dissolve itself, which it did on November 19, 2008, forcing new elections, and the left-leaning Ypsilanti was forced to step aside in disgrace, to be replaced as candidate with Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, a relatively unknown SPD backbencher.
The January election resulted in a further disaster for
the SPD, which has been battling poor polling for months, and is desperate to
restore its fortunes by winning state government. Its support dropped thirteen
points to only 23 per cent – the worst result in the
party’s history, a fact made bearable only by the fact that the CDU’s showing
was equally unimpressive. They managed only a 0.4 per cent increase on last
year’s result of 36.8 per cent, making this its worst result in Hesse as
well.
While
voters punished both the SPD and CDU, the main beneficiaries in the election
were the minor parties – the Greens’ vote almost doubled to 14 per cent, while
support for the FDP rose from 10 to 16 per cent. Many more people simply
refused to vote, however, and the election saw voter turnout in
While the SPD lost considerable support, it is perhaps surprising that Die Linke – which aims to win over disenfranchised SPD supporters – achieved only moderate gains, increasing its support by 0.3 per cent to 5.4 per cent. While failing to capitalise immediately from the SPD’s disarray, Die Linke has nevertheless managed to hold on to the six parliamentary seats it won last year – still a major breakthrough for the young party.
In the end, then, after twelve months of caretaker government, incumbent CDU Prime Minister Koch has been returned to power, in alliance with a strengthened FDP, a political constellation that many see as the likely outcome in the federal election due for later this year.
SPD in crisis
In
the wake of the Hesse results, the SPD remains in total disarray, having lost
considerable support due to its anti-social fee-market policies, for which it
lost government in 2005. Support has dropped to a dismal 22 per cent
nationwide, well behind the CDU on 37 per cent, and the SPD is desperate for
political victories to revive it in this important federal election year.
Having
replaced unpopular national leader Kurt Beck – who flip-flopped on the question
of working with Die Linke – with the machiavellian Franz Münterfering, the SPD
was hoping for a revival of its fortunes. However, as the unwilling junior
partners in a federal “Grand Coalition” government alongside the right-wing
CDU, the SPD is continuing to implement neoliberal policies, further alienating
its traditional support base, which is already suffering the effects of the
economic crisis.
When the German economy fell into recession late last year, the CDU/SPD government’s response was to announce a €480 billion “bail-out” of the country’s major banks. At the very same time, unemployment in Germany is expected to rise by nearly 1 million over the next few months, and the country is facing a poverty rate that is estimated to stand as high as 18 per cent, and it is rapidly rising.
There are already suggestions that the country’s second largest private
bank, Commerzbank, is using its first €10 billion ($20 billion) handout simply
to finance a takeover bid of Dresdner Bank, while the major German banks are
already calling for a second “emergency bailout” to divest them of a claimed €300
in “toxic debts”.
At the same time, workers’ industrial action is on the rise in
`Super election’ year
Germans will vote this year in sixteen polls, including local, European and presidential elections, as well as state elections in Saarland, Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, before the federal elections on September 27. In the former East Germany, Die Linke maintains popular support of more than 25 per cent, where it has built on its former PDS support base. In many of these eastern states, such as Thuringia and Saxony, Die Linke is expected to outpoll the SPD, and support for Die Linke is expected to grow as the economic crisis deepens.
In the west, however, the SPD also has reason to be worried. While the PDS had failed to reach into the west, Die Linke has fared better, winning seats in every west German state election it has contested except Bavaria, which has a more complicated electoral system
In the industrial centre of Saarland, which is home to co-leader Oskar Lafontaine. Die Linke has polled as high as 29 per cent – double SPD support in that state. There is a real chance that Die Linke could poll high enough force the SPD into an alliance government – Die Linke’s first in the western part of the country.
The `red threat’
Since
its official formation in 2007, Die Linke has grown to the point that it is now
the third-biggest party in Germany, polling up to 15 per
cent nationally. This popularity results from Die Linke’s criticism of neoliberal
economic policies, and in its calls for greater social spending – on education,
health, housing and employment – and higher taxes for the rich.
Oskar
Lafontaine, who has been openly critical of the role of finance capital and
globalisation, recently called for income tax on all “shameful” incomes – those
above €600,000 ($750,000) – to be increased to 80 per cent. While many of
Lafontaine’s statements are simply anti-neoliberal, he as gone as far as to
identify “globalisation” with capitalism, and to call for the inclusion of
sections from the Communist Manifesto in
Die Linke’s constitution, stoking right-wing fears of a “communist revival”.
This
rhetoric – genuine or not – is also striking a positive a chord in
The German state has been less than positive about the rise of Die Linke. A 2007 report from the Verfassungsschutz – a German secret service agency – indicated that the government had placed Die Linke under surveillance, leading to a public outcry, and a number of legal cases. Die Linke is also opposed to militarism and calls for an end to German involvement in the war in Afghanistan, putting it at odds with every other party in the German Bundestag, and with Germany’s imperialist allies abroad.
A year of challenges
Despite
its rapid growth, however, Die Linke still faces challenges in uniting former
PDS members and social democrats, revolutionary socialists and left-wing
radicals around a common, militant, platform.
In
Unionists
have also pointed to Die Linke’s contradictory positions in a number of recent
industrial disputes, and the party has been accused of pursuing an electoralist
strategy at the detriment of building the social and union movements.
These
problems are often ascribed to the influence of the more socially conservative
ex-members of the PDS within the party, but while Die Linke may be largely
dominated by the former PDS, it has attracted thousands of more-radical
members, including far-left groups, militant trade unionists and socialists,
and has become a far more diverse and effective organisation.
Despite
these challenges, and the ongoing media campaign against Die Linke as
“neo-communist”, including attempts to link leading members with the Stasi –
the former
If
it can overcome its own internal problems and the attacks of the mainstream
media, Die Linke looks set to score major electoral wins this year, and force
German politics leftwards.
[Duroyan
Fertl is a member of the Democratic Socialist Perspective, an Marxist
organisation affiliated to the Socialist Alliance of Australia.]