FT.com / World - Germany’s new political party is born

FT.com / World - Germany’s new political party is born

Germany’s new political party is born
By Hugh Williamson in Berlin

Published: June 18 2007 21:42 | Last updated: June 18 2007 21:42

Germany’s main political parties on Monday reacted with bluster and a show of nerves to the birth of a new political force, the Left party, which could shake up the country’s political architecture.

The Left party – which on Sunday completed a two-year merger process between the east German ex-communist PDS, and a west German leftwing splinter party – has overnight become Germany’s largest opposition party, with 72,000 members.

Its founding also cements the trend whereby political power in parliament is divided among five parties, making coalition-building trickier than during most of Germany’s postwar history, when there were only three or four parties in parliament.

Peter Struck, parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats, said the Left party was “all hot air and no substance”, while Edmund Stoiber, Bavarian conservative state premier, attacked the party for being led by a “dangerous demagogue”.

He was referring to Oskar Lafontaine, former SPD chairman and finance minister, whose decision in 2005 to work with the PDS was the impulse for the new party.

SPD leaders acknowledged they were unsure whether to distance themselves from the new party, shift to the left to reduce its support, or consider the long-term option of building a parliamentary alliance with the Left party.

Mr Struck admitted that the SPD was “at present having difficulty in exposing the true nature” of the Left party.

The SPD said on Monday that no national-level coalition would be formed with the Left party “in 2009 [after national elections] or for some time thereafter” because of gaping differences especially on foreign policy. The leftwing group wants to end German military deployments in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

SPD officials argue the Left party remains dominated by elderly ex-communists with roots in East Germany who are unwilling to embrace reform policies. Around half of the party’s members are eastern Germans over 65 years old.

In contrast, the mood among Left party leaders was upbeat. Speaking in the party’s east Berlin headquarters – in the 1930s home of Germany’s Communist party – Dietmar Bartsch, Left party managing director, said it was ready to talk with the SPD “if conditions were right”.

Mr Bartsch said the SPD was already moving leftwards, for instance in its demand for a minimum wage – “a Left party election pledge in 2005”, he said.

Several prominent SPD politicians have backed the idea of, in the long term, opening coalition talks with the Left party, with the departure of Mr Lafontaine from the Left party leadership – expected by 2010 – the most likely starting point.

The SPD already works with the Left party in the Berlin city government and elsewhere. Last month the Left party for the first time won seats in a west German state assembly, in Bremen.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007