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Die Linkspartei
The Left Party/PDS logo
Leader Lothar Bisky
Founded April 21, 1946 (SED)
December 16, 1989 (SED-PDS)
February 4, 1990 (PDS)
July 17, 2005 (Die Linkspartei/PDS)
Headquarters Karl-Liebknecht-Haus
Kleine Alexanderstraße 28
D-10178 Berlin
Political Ideology Democratic Socialism, eurocommunism
International Affiliation none
European Affiliation Party of the European Left
European Parliament Group GUE/NGL
Colours Red
Website www.sozialisten.de
See also Politics of Germany

Political parties
Elections

The Left Party/PDS (German: Die Linkspartei/PDS), formerly Party of Democratic Socialism (Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus, PDS) was a socialist political party in Germany. Lothar Bisky (born August 17, 1941 in Rummelsburg Germany, now Miastko, Poland) was the Chairman of the Left Party Events 753 BC - Romulus and Remus found Rome ( traditional date) Year 1946 ( MCMXLVI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 755 - An Lushan revolts against Chancellor Yang Guozhong at Fanyang, initiating the An Shi Rebellion Year 1989 ( MCMLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar) Events 211 - Roman Emperor Septimius Severus dies leaving the Roman Empire in the hands of his two quarrelsome sons Year 1990 ( MCMXC) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar) Events 180 - Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa are executed for being Christians Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. Democratic socialism is a description used by various socialist movements tendencies and organizations to emphasize the democratic character of their political orientation Eurocommunism was a new trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties to develop a theory and practice of social transformation that The European Left party is a Political party at European level and an association of Socialist and Communist political parties in the European Union European United Left–Nordic Green Left is a socialist, eco-socialist and communist political group with seats in the European Parliament since Red is any of a number of similar Colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of Light discernible by the human eye in the wavelength Politics of Germany takes place in a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic Republic, whereby the Federal Chancellor This is a list of political parties in Germany. Germany has a Multi-party system with two large parties three substantial smaller parties and a number of minor The following information deals with elections in Germany, including elections to the Federal Diet (the lower house of the federal parliament the Landtags The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution A political party is a Political organization that seeks to attain and maintain political power within Government, usually by participating in electoral Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. It is the legal successor to the Socialist Unity Party (SED), which ruled the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) until 1990. The Socialist Unity Party of Germany ( German: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) was the governing party of the German Democratic The German Democratic Republic ( GDR; Deutsche Demokratische Republik DDR; commonly known in English as East Germany) was a Socialist state Year 1990 ( MCMXC) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar) From 1990 through 2005, the PDS had been seen as the left-wing "party of the East", and whilst achieving minimal support in western Germany regularly won 15 to 25 percent of the vote in eastern Germany, entering coalition governments (with the SPD) in the federal states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, sometimes translated as Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania or Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, is a state in Northern Germany comprising Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany.

In 2005, the PDS, renamed The Left Party/PDS, entered an electoral alliance with the western Germany-based Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative (WASG) and won 8. Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative (Arbeit und soziale Gerechtigkeit – Die Wahlalternative WASG) was a German political party founded 7% of the vote in Germany's September 2005 federal elections (more than double the PDS' 4% share in the 2002 election). German federal elections took place on September 18, 2005 to elect the members of the 16th German Bundestag, the federal parliament of Germany On June 16, 2007, the two groupings merged to form a unified party called The Left (Die Linke). Events 1487 - Battle of Stoke Field, the last dying breath of the Wars of the Roses. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. The Left (Die Linke is a German political party that came into being on 16 June 2007 as a merger of The Left Party/PDS the former

The party has many Social Progressivist policies. Social progressivism is the view that social Mores, Human nature, and Morality are capable of progress through history in a manner similar to that of scientific For example, they want to legalize same-sex marriage, and they also want the state to grant better conditions for immigrants.

Internationally, the Left Party/PDS was a co-founder of the European Left alliance of parties and was the largest party in the European United Left–Nordic Green Left group in the European Parliament. The European Left party is a Political party at European level and an association of Socialist and Communist political parties in the European Union European United Left–Nordic Green Left is a socialist, eco-socialist and communist political group with seats in the European Parliament since The European Parliament ( Europarl or EP) is the only directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union (EU

Contents

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 East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party who looked to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika as their model for political change. Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes where as much decision-making authority as practical is shifted to the organization's lowest geographic Erich Honecker ( August 25, 1912 – May 29, 1994) was a German Communist Politician who led the German Democratic Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev ( Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov;; born 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye Stavropol Krai) is a Russian politician (Гла́сность)is literally defined as publicity and sometimes figuratively interpreted as "tipping a vase to let someone see into the vase but not the bottom of the vase" (Перестройка) is the Russian term (now used in English for the economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev Reformers like authors Stefan Heym and Christa Wolf and human rights attorney Gregor Gysi, lawyer of dissidents like Robert Havemann and Rudolf Bahro, soon began to re-invent a party infamous for its rigid Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy and police-state methods. Helmut Flieg ( April 10, 1913 - December 16, 2001) was a German - Jewish Writer, known by his Pseudonym Christa Wolf (born Christa Ihlenfeld on March 18, 1929) is a German Literary critic, Novelist and Essayist Gregor Gysi (ˈgiːzi born January 16, 1948) is a German Attorney and key politician of the Left Party. By the end of 1989 the last hardline members of the party's Central Committee had resigned, followed in 1990 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 transitional period as the SED/PDS). By early 1990, the PDS was no longer a Marxist-Leninist party, though neo-marxist and communist minority factions continue to exist. Leninism refers to various related political and economic theories elaborated by Bolshevik revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin.

In state and local government

The Left Party (then the Party of Democratic Socialism) has had several years of experience as a junior coalition partner in two federal states —Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania— where it co-governed until 2006 with the Social Democratic Party. Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, sometimes translated as Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania or Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, is a state in Northern Germany comprising Political responsibility 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 and refuses to be labelled as merely a "protest party," although certainly the party attracted millions of protest voters in the federal election, profiting from growing dissatisfaction with high unemployment and cutbacks in health insurance, unemployment benefits, and labor rights. Unemployment occurs when a person is available to work and currently seeking work but the person is without work. The term health insurance is generally used to describe a form of Insurance that pays for medical expenses Labor rights or workers' rights are a group of Legal rights and claimed Human rights having to do with Labor relations between Workers

In federal elections

In the first all-German elections in 1990, the PDS won only 2. The 12th German federal election 1990 was conducted on December 2, 1990, to elect members to the Bundestag (lower house of Germany. 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, one of Germany's most charismatic and articulate politicians. The Bundestag ("Federal Diet " or "Lower House of German Parliament" is the Parliament of Germany. In the 1994 election, in spite of an anti-communist "Red Socks" campaign by the then-ruling Christian Democrats aimed at scaring off eastern communist voters, the PDS increased its vote to 4. The 13th German federal election 1994 was conducted on October 16, 1994, to elect members to the Bundestag (lower house of Germany. The Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands) is the largest Political party in Germany. 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. Year 1998 ( MCMXCVIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar) 1% of the national vote, thus clearing the critical 5% threshold required 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 party's vote sank back to 4. The 15th German federal election 2002 was conducted on September 22, 2002, to elect members to the Bundestag (lower house of Germany. 0%, and was able to seat only two back-benchers elected directly from their districts, Petra Pau and Gesine Lötzsch. Petra Pau (born 9 August 1963) is a member of the Left PartyPDS in the German parliament the Bundestag. Gesine Lötzsch (born 7 August 1961) is a German Socialist Politician.

After the 2002 debacle, the PDS adopted a new program and re-installed a respected moderate, long-time Gysi ally Lothar Bisky, as chair. Lothar Bisky (born August 17, 1941 in Rummelsburg Germany, now Miastko, Poland) was the Chairman of the Left Party 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 at that time in a federal election. Its electoral base in the eastern German states continued to grow, where today it ranks with the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats as one of the region's three strong parties. The Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands) is the largest Political party in Germany. However, low membership and voter support in Germany's western states continued to plague the party on the federal level until it formed an electoral alliance in July 2005 with the Electoral Alternative for Labor and Social Justice (WASG), a leftist faction of dissident Social Democrats and trade unionists, with the merged list being called the Left Party. Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative (Arbeit und soziale Gerechtigkeit – Die Wahlalternative WASG) was a German political party founded In the 2005 federal election the Left Party received 8. 7% of the nationwide vote and won 54 seats in the German Bundestag. The Bundestag ("Federal Diet " or "Lower House of German Parliament" is the Parliament of Germany.

Alliance with the WASG

Election campaign 2005
Election campaign 2005

After marathon negotiations, the PDS and WASG agreed on terms for a combined ticket to compete in the 2005 federal elections and pledged to unify into a single left party in 2006 or 2007. Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative (Arbeit und soziale Gerechtigkeit – Die Wahlalternative WASG) was a German political party founded German federal elections took place on September 18, 2005 to elect the members of the 16th German Bundestag, the federal parliament of Germany According to the pact, the parties did not compete against each another in any district. Instead, WASG candidates—including the former Social Democratic leader, Oskar Lafontaine—were nominated on the PDS electoral list. Oskar Lafontaine (ˈlafɔntɛn born September 16, 1943 in Saarlouis -Roden is a German Politician, former German finance minister To symbolize the new relationship, the PDS changed its name to The Left Party/PDS or The Left/PDS, with the letters "PDS" optional in western states where many voters still regarded the PDS as an "eastern" party.

The alliance provided a strong electoral base in the east and benefited from WASG's growing voter potential in the west. Gregor Gysi, returning to public life only months after brain surgery and two heart attacks, shared the spotlight with Lafontaine as co-leader of the party's energetic and professional campaign. Both politicians will co-chair the Left's caucus in the German Bundestag after the election. The Bundestag ("Federal Diet " or "Lower House of German Parliament" is the Parliament of Germany.

Polls early in the summer showed the unifed Left list on a "high-altitude flight," winning as much as 12 percent of the vote, and for a time it seemed possible the party would surge past the Alliance '90/The Greens and the pro-business Free Democratic Party and become the third-strongest force in the Bundestag. The Alliance '90/The Greens ( Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) the German Green party, is a Political party in Germany whose regional The Free Democratic Party ( Freie Demokratische Partei, FDP is a liberal Political party in Germany. But, alarmed by the Left's unexpected rise in the polls, Germany's mainstream politicians hit back at Lafontaine and Gysi as "left populists" and "demagogues" and accused the party of flirting with neo-Nazi voters. A gaffe by Lafontaine, who described "foreign workers" as a threat in one speech early in the campaign, provided ammunition for charges that the Left was attempting to exploit German xenophobia. The word error has different meanings and usages relative to how it is conceptually applied

Although Germany's once-powerful trade unions distanced themselves from the Left in the 2005 election, some union leaders expressed interest in cooperating with the party after the election. A number of regional trade union leaders and mid-level functionaries are active supporters.

2005 federal election outcome

Federal elections results
Federal elections results

At the 2005 federal election, the Left Party became the fourth-largest party in the Bundestag, with 54 Members of Parliament (MPs) (full list), ahead of the Greens (51) but behind the Free Democrats (61). Three Left Party MPs were directly elected on a constituency basis: Gregor Gysi, Gesine Lötzsch and Petra Pau, all in Eastern Berlin constituencies. Gregor Gysi (ˈgiːzi born January 16, 1948) is a German Attorney and key politician of the Left Party. Gesine Lötzsch (born 7 August 1961) is a German Socialist Politician. Petra Pau (born 9 August 1963) is a member of the Left PartyPDS in the German parliament the Bundestag. Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. In addition, 51 Left Party MPs were elected through the party list element of Germany's Additional Member System of proportional representation. Party-list proportional representation systems are a family of Voting systems used in multiple-winner Elections (e The Additional Member System (AMS is a branch of Voting systems in which some representatives are elected from geographic constituencies and others are elected under Proportional representation (sometimes referred to as full representation or PR is a category of electoral formula aiming at a close match between the percentage of votes These include Lothar Bisky, Katja Kipping, Oskar Lafontaine, and Paul Schäfer. Lothar Bisky (born August 17, 1941 in Rummelsburg Germany, now Miastko, Poland) was the Chairman of the Left Party Katja Kipping (born in Dresden, Germany on January 18, 1978) is a German Politician. Oskar Lafontaine (ˈlafɔntɛn born September 16, 1943 in Saarlouis -Roden is a German Politician, former German finance minister Paul Schäfer was born January 18, 1949 in Mainz. In 1978 he received a diploma in Sociology. Besides Lafontaine, a number of other prominent SPD defectors won election to the Bundestag on the Left Party list, including a prominent leader of Germany's Turkish minority, Hakkı Keskin, German Federal Constitutional Court justice Wolfgang Neskovic, and the former SPD leader in Baden-Württemberg, Ulrich Maurer. The Turkish people (Türk Halkı also known as " Turks " ( Türkler) are defined mainly as being speakers of Turkish as a First language Professor Dr Hakkı Keskin (born in 12 February 1943, Maçka, Trabzon, Turkey) is a Turkish-German politician with the The Federal Constitutional Court (in German: Bundesverfassungsgericht BVerfG) is a special Court established by the Basic Law for the Federal Republic

When the votes were counted, the party doubled its federal vote from 1. 9 million (PDS result in 2002) to more than 4 million—including an electoral breakthrough in industrial Saarland where, for the first time in a western state, it surpassed the Greens and FDP due, in large part to Lafontaine's popularity and Saarland roots. It is now the second strongest party in three states,all of them in the former GDR, (Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia) and the third strongest in four others, all but Saarland in the former GDR, (Saarland, Berlin, Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). It was the only party to win over protest voters broadly across Germany's political spectrum: nearly one million Social Democratic voters defected to the Left while the Christian Democrats and Greens together lost half a million votes to the resurgent party.

Exit polls showed the Left had a unique appeal to non-voters: 390,000 Germans who refused to support any party in 2002 returned to the ballot box to vote for the Left Party. The Left's image as the last line of defense for Germany's traditional "social state" (Sozialstaat) proved to be a magnet for voters in western as well as eastern Germany.

All other established parties had ruled out the possibility of a coalition with the Left Party prior to the election (in other words, a cordon sanitaire), and refused to reconsider in the light of the closeness of the election result, which prevented either of the usual ideologically-coherent coalitions from attaining a majority. Cordon sanitaire is a French phrase that literally translated means Quarantine line The possibility of a minority SPD-Green government tolerated by the Left Party was the closest the Left Party came to potential participation in government at this election.

2006 state election results

The Left Party suffered serious losses in the 2006 elections for the city-state government of Berlin, losing nearly half of its vote and falling to 13 percent—slightly ahead of the Greens. Berlin's popular Social Democratic mayor, Klaus Wowereit, nevertheless decided to retain the weakened party as his coalition partner.

In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Left Party suffered no serious losses and remains the third-strongest party in the state. However, it was dropped as a coalition partner by the Social Democratic premier, Harold Ringstorff, and now heads the opposition in the state assembly.

Despite its losses in Berlin, support for the Left Party/PDS and its WASG ally remain stable at about eight to ten percent of the vote. Cooperation between the two parties on a national level and in their single Bundestag delegation has been largely free of tensions. Though a minority of WASG members oppose the merger of the two parties scheduled for June 2007, it seems likely the new party—to be called simply The Left—will be on Germany's political stage before the next federal elections. The Left (Die Linke is a German political party that came into being on 16 June 2007 as a merger of The Left Party/PDS the former

Stasi connections

Since German reunification, the PDS has frequently been the target of suspicions that leading members were connected with East Germany's Ministry for State Security, or Stasi. For the regular police in East Germany see Volkspolizei. The Ministerium für Staatssicherheit ( Ministry for State Security Shortly after the 2005 federal election, Marianne Birthler, the official in charge of the Stasi archives, accused the Left Party of harboring at least seven former Stasi informants in its newly-elected parliamentary group. [1] At about the same time, the media revealed that Lutz Heilmann, a Left Party Bundestag deputy from the state of Schleswig-Holstein, had worked several years for the Stasi. Lutz Heilmann (born September 7, 1966 in Zittau) is a member of the German Parliament the Bundestag, for far-left party Die Linke [2] While the first accusation proved to be false, Heilmann's connection with the Stasi remained controversial. Though Heilmann had served as a bodyguard, not as an informant or secret police officer, he violated a Left Party regulation obliging candidates to reveal past Stasi involvement. Nevertheless, the Left Party membership in Schleswig-Holstein narrowly passed a vote of confidence in favor of Heilmann, and he continues to serve in the Bundestag.

Charges of a Stasi past were also a factor in the Bundestag's decision to reject Lothar Bisky as the Left Party's candidate for the post of parliamentary vice president. Lothar Bisky (born August 17, 1941 in Rummelsburg Germany, now Miastko, Poland) was the Chairman of the Left Party Though Bisky's candidacy was supported by the Greens and by some Christian Democratic and Social Democratic leaders, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, after two failed votes the party decided to withdraw his nomination. Five months later, the Left Party's Petra Pau was elected vice president. Petra Pau (born 9 August 1963) is a member of the Left PartyPDS in the German parliament the Bundestag.

In the Free State of Saxony, the chairman of the Left Party group, Peter Porsch, could lose his mandate in the Saxon parliament because of his alleged Stasi past. The Free State of Saxony (Freistaat Sachsen ˈzaksən Swobodny Stat Sakska is the easternmost federal state of Germany. In May 2006, all parties represented in the parliament, except the Left Party, voted to initiate proceedings against Porsch. [3] However, in November, the state's constitutional court dismissed the complaint against Porsch on technical grounds.

Miscellaneous facts

See also

External links

http://www.monthlyreview.org/0507is.htm Ingo Schmidt, "The Left Opposition in Germany. The Left (Die Linke is a German political party that came into being on 16 June 2007 as a merger of The Left Party/PDS the former Politics of Germany takes place in a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic Republic, whereby the Federal Chancellor This is a list of political parties in Germany. Germany has a Multi-party system with two large parties three substantial smaller parties and a number of minor The Bundestag ("Federal Diet " or "Lower House of German Parliament" is the Parliament of Germany. Why Is the Left So Weak When So Many Are Looking for Political Alternatives?", in Monthly Review, May 2007]

Further reading

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