Die Linke's Oskar Lafontaine: "Yes, good evening everyone"

If the SPD doesn't work with Die Linke, it's going to die out.  The party is clearly on a path of long-term decline, and I think a fair amount of those on its right-wing would actually like it to do badly, so they could then push for a merger with the CDU. 

The SPD-failing continually since they armed the Freikorps.  Willi Brandt wouldn't be welcome in Schroeder's party.

My congratulations to Oskar Lafontaine-some people know that left-wing parties are supposed to OPPOSE the right.

Meh.  If Die Linke absolutely has to co-govern, it should abstain from administering services cuts.  The coalition in Berlin is a bad precedent.

CDU drops one point: right 49%, left 45%.

Regarding Die Linke, I was under the impression that the policy of SPD and all the major parties was effectively a cordon sanitaire - they would all rather do a grand coaltion instead of going into coalition with Die Linke.

That's the SPD's position at the national level, though that may change depending on the dynamics resulting from the recent state elections.

Here's a link to the 2005 federal German election maps.  I believe these are the List votes (Zweitstimmen/Second Votes).  Adobe SVG-Plugin 3 required.  Provided through the website.

When you get to the site, next to Sachgebiet, click Bundestagswahl 2005.

Next to Merkmal, click either SPD, CDU/CSU, Grüne, FDP, or Die Linke/PDS.

The maps are in German only.

I used Internet Explorer.

The youngest Left Party deputies in the Thuringian legislature:

Matthias Bärwolff, 23, student, was first elected five years ago as an 18-year-old high school student. At the state convention of his party in March 2009 he stood eighth in elections for the list positions. At age 15 he joined the PDS-Youth, and at age 16 he joined the "Communist Platform" (KPF), a political association within the party favoring orthodox left wing Communist positions. He has also been a member of Erfurt City Council. He continued as a university student studying Geography until 2006 when he switched to Business Administration. He is also a member of the European Anti-Capitalist Left, mainly Trotskyist but not limited to them.

Katharina König, 31, attended grammar school until 1997 in Jena. After a social year in Israel (voluntary service for young people in Germany) at a home for Holocaust survivors, she began a study of Semitic Philology, Islamic Studies, Political Science and Arabic at Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, graduating in 2002. She worked seven years as a social worker and street worker in a youth center in the Evangelical Lutheran congregation in Jena. At the same time, in 2004 she continued her studies at the University of Cooperative Education in Gera in Social Work and got her Masters' degree in 2007.

She was politically active since 1999 in the Action Alliance against the Right (Jena) and before the Iraq War from 2002 in the Jena Peace Alliance. In the 2004 municipal elections she was elected to the City Council for the PDS. In May 2009 she was re-elected and was chairman of the Left Party in Jena. She won eleventh place in the Left Party list, and won a list seat in the legislature.

Susanne Hennig, also 31, was a competitive athlete in speed skating. After graduating in Education at University of Erfurt in 2001, she worked at the PDS Group in the Thuringian legislature until 2004 as a research assistant for education and media. In 2004 at age 26 she was elected to Erfurt City Council, and the same year was elected as the second youngest MPP in the Thuringian state legislature. This year she startled observers by winning the local constituency seat for Erfurt II, defeating the incumbent CDU member.

Katja Wolf at age 33 is a veteran already: she was first elected at age 23, and has sat for 10 years. This year she too won a local seat, in Eisenach, defeating a CDU member.

Good to see this kind of young energy.  Is there any such thing as a young member of the SPD anymore? 

In the Thuringia legislature, one: Peter Metz, 24, a student.

After completing high school in 2003, he did his voluntary year as a nursing assistant, worked another year as a nursing assistant, then began Studies in History and Philosophy. Meanwhile he became Deputy Chair of the Erfurt Young Socialists nine years ago, and ended up in 2004 as Provincial Chair of the Thuringia Young Socialists, which he still was on his election to the legislature this year.

OK, you've found the last right-wing Social Democrat in Germany under age 50. 

It's a party for bitter, cynical middle-aged hacks who have no desire for life to be any different than it is now.  The SPD no longer has any convictions of any sort.  Therefore, why WOULD anyone who is still young or even anyone who still has hope for changing this world support such a party?

This election will be the SPD's death anyway.

The SPD was demanding that, as a condition of a coalition with the Left, the SPD should hold the Thuringia premiership . . . and the Left now agrees!

Two things that stand out are his studies and his location: I like his non-stereotypical studies, leftists studying business.  I also know that Erfurt is the place where the SPD approved its epic program of 1891, the template for most Marxist programs since then.

Quote:

Katja Wolf at age 33 is a veteran already: she was first elected at age 23, and has sat for 10 years. This year she too won a local seat, in Eisenach, defeating a CDU member.

Eisenach: the birthplace of one of the SPD's founding parties.

Missing Link: Dissent, Delusion and Discontent

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1842-...

"The point here is not to praise Die Linke - or any political party-unreservedly, but to wonder: where are the prominent Democrats (or in the UK, the Labor bigwigs) with the guts to leave their dysfunctional, corrupted parties and make common cause with the millions of people suffering under political systems now given over entirely to the service of financial elites and war profiteers?

Where are the vote-winning coalitions of the disaffected - ardently calling for social justice and anti-militarism instead of veering off into neo-fascist mlitancy?

There are tens of millions of people across the Western world who are deeply disturbed by the state of modern society--a society whose discontents stem overwhelmingly from the inherent corruption of unjust rule by rapacious, belligerent elites. Yet much of this discontent is being seized upon by rightwing forces--many of them in the pay of those same elites--who redirect this anger toward the most vulnerable in society, very deliberately playing the game of divide and conquer that elites have used to such devastating effect for centuries.."

Not sure that was a wise bit of strategy to give in on that.  It might have been better to say no, which likely would have made the SPD, out of desperation, join a "grand coalition" with the CDU in Thuringia.  This would probably have infuriated enough of the SPD rank-and-file there that they'd have thrown their support to Die Linke next time. 

The worst thing would be if this SPD governor insisted on forcing Die Linke to carry out right-wing Schroeder-like policies.

It is also the capital of Thuringia, which is likely more relevant to current politics there.

 Fractured Group of Arguing Lone Wolves

Party one, in the east, is a mainstream party that wants to remain palatable --and therefore a reasonable choice -- to the German middle class voters. Party two, in the west, insists that it is a splinter party with very specific interests. This, its members argue, differentiates them from the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens, already well entrenched in the west. However this also limits how popular they can ever be. Polls currently show the Left Party garnering between 6 and 7 percent of the votes in North Rhine-Westphalia.

To prevent the Left Party from looking like a fractured group of bickering subgroups and lone wolves, Gysi has for months been encouraging his party to contain itself. It has been a tricky experiment but at first it had appeared to be bearing fruit.

At the Left Party party convention in June, the two sides diligently stuck to their cease-fire. Gysi took to the podium and held a speech about unity -- a speech for which he was rewarded with a standing ovation. But as the delegates stood and applauded, Diether Dehm, the head of the Left Party in Lower Saxony stood up and hissed, "sit down. you know that every second counts." Dehm is a supporter of Lafontaine and did not want the usurper from the east to get one moment more attention than his own man. At which stage, an annoyed member from out of Brandenburg yelled out, "Shut your mouth, you asshole!"