OFFICIAL DEBUT OF GERMANY'S LEFT PARTY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BERLIN 001253 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/22/2017 TAGS: PGOV GM SUBJECT: OFFICIAL DEBUT OF GERMANY'S LEFT PARTY Classified By: Political Minister Counselor John Bauman. Reasons: 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (U) Summary. At a Berlin convention on June 16, the long-awaited and painfully negotiated merger of Germany's eastern-based Left Party.PDS and western-based Electoral Alternative for Social Justice (WASG) into a single national "Left Party" was officially consummated. Delegates to the convention, which dominated national media over the weekend (to the unhappiness of the Liberals, meeting simultaneously in Stuttgart),were in a celebratory mood, but contacts pointed to the difficulties they expect negotiating a common platform over the coming year. Though the Left Party (LP) is led by co-chairs, former SPD Chairman Oskar Lafontaine is the leading political force and public face of the party. His rousing speech to the convention (he called for a general strike and lauded the democratic achievements of Hugo Chavez!) was greeted with enthusiasm. Most commentators see in the new party a challenge mainly to the SPD, but one CDU contact fears that the SPD, to continue to draw from a broad voter base, will shift to the right. The LP has been steady at 8-10 percent in polls, and most commentators and contacts believe it is a permanent part of Germany's political landscape. End Summary. Brief History -------------- ¶2. (U) The two components of the LP have very different background. The eastern Left Party.PDS was the successor to East Germany's Communist party. Its membership was largely drawn from that party and it never achieved an electoral breakthrough in western Germany. Though rhetorically radical, its political pragmatism enabled it early on to establish working relationships on the state level in the east. As early as 1994 the SPD and Greens established a minority coalition in Saxony-Anhalt that depended on PDS support. In 1998, it entered government with the SPD in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and in 2002 in Berlin. However, its pragmatism in government also cost it some of its more radical/protest-focused support. ¶3. (U) The WASG is a much more recent arrival, having been established in 2005 in western Germany by labor union officials, SPD members, and various leftists in response to the SPD's implementation of economic (especially labor market) reforms. The WASG was never able to win seats in a western state parliament and was merely a fringe movement in the east. However, the two parties agreed to cooperate in the September 2005 Bundestag election and were able to take 8.7 percent of the vote and 54 seats. Following the campaign, the parties agreed to merge formally. Since then, the two have been engaged in sustained negotiations over the terms of the merger. Key issues included: the balance between easterners and westerners in a party whose membership is about two-thirds eastern; quotas for women in the party leadership; and whether members could hold both a party and an elected office simultaneously. Developing a common program in advance of the formal merger proved too difficult, and so was shelved until after the merger. The merger was approved by large majorities of the members in both parties, despite tenacious resistance from far-far-left minorities in both parties. Cultural Differences and Party Program -------------- ¶4. (U) Throughout the negotiating process, leaders from the two parties pointed to cultural obstacles as the major hurdle in bringing the two together. The WASG has a much stronger orientation toward personal liberty, and many were deeply concerned about a merger with ex-Stalinists in the LP.PDS. These differences were clear in the June 15 close-out conventions held by the two parties in side by-side convention halls. The PDS ran a disciplined and media-savvy show; the WASG convention included hand-painted slogans on sheets and had rather the air of a late '60s college sit-in. PDS delegates were older and better dressed; WASG delegates more inclined to challenge the party leadership. The debate in the new LP over the term "democratic socialism" has become a proxy for the cultural divide, with the old PDS favoring it and the WASG more in favor of "social democracy." ¶5. (C) On the margins of the convention, Klaus Lederer, head of the Berlin LP, told us that the real work would now begin, as the party tries to draft a common program. Because of their more pragmatic approach, former PDS members and the LP leadership are generally (with important exceptions) expected to take positions that would be flexible and not so extreme as to preclude participation in state (and perhaps eventually federal) governments. PDS hardliners and many in the WASG, coming from a more purely protest tradition, are expected to BERLIN 00001253 002 OF 002 support a more ideological platform. However, the WASG also includes a large number of former SPD and labor union figures who can probably find common cause with former PDS members. As de facto party leader, Oskar Lafontaine will have a large voice in the debate, and his position is far from clear. His speeches at the various conventions breathed fiery resistance (we must learn from the French, we need a general strike!") to reductions in workers' protections or social services, demanded nationalization of the energy sector, and excoriated the evils of international finance and predatory capitalism. Though appealing to the delegates, such sentiments, if translated into a party platform, will not make the LP an easy coalition partner for the SPD. ¶6. (C) Foreign policy figured in the convention on a strictly ideological basis. Speakers deplored any kind of German military engagement abroad, denounced globalization, and attacked the U.S. as the source of most of the world's evils. In his speech to the LP, Oskar Lafontaine said "Bush and Blair are terrorists. That must be said clearly," in addition to praising Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales in South America for their contributions to "democratic" control of their national economies. Several LP leaders, including Lederer, Member of the Bundestag (MdB) Bodo Ramelow, and Executive Board member Helmut Scholz have admitted to us that foreign policy is used mainly as a rallying point for the party. In a post-convention meeting, Ramelow told PolCouns that one of the debates the party is going to have to go through before it could become a national coalition partner will be about foreign policy and, especially, the use of military power overseas. Ramelow said that he and other PDS leaders like Gregor Gysi considered the PDS' categorical opposition to German military deployments to be a mistake. SPD leaders such as FM Steinmeier have cited the LP's pacifism as a primary reason why it is unfit for federal governing responsibility. Impact on the Political Landscape -------------- ¶7. (C) Much of the potential impact of the weekend's developments had been previewed by the combined showing of the LP.PDS and WASG in the September 2005 Bundestag election and in subsequent state elections, notably in Bremen in May ¶2007. In addition, the combined parties have consistently scored around 8-10 percent in opinion polls taken since 2005, putting them at roughly the same level as the Liberals and Greens. Having forged a single party and broken through at state level in the west, the LP's next task is to show it can win seats in the west outside the city-states. Of the first two such elections, in January 2008 in Hesse and Lower Saxony, the LP has the best chances in Hesse. Most observers and our contacts are now treating the LP as a permanent part of a 5-party German political landscape. This complicates government formation at the federal level considerably, as the only alternative to a Grand Coalition seems now to be some three-party combination, which is unprecedented in recent German history. ¶8. (C) Most observers see the LP as primarily a threat to the SPD, siphoning off members and voters from its left wing. The media gave remarkable coverage to a group of five SPD members who last week switched to the LP. Ramelow claimed the LP attracted 3,000 new members in a few days after the founding convention. The SPD itself is aware of the challenge, but appears resigned to it. The SPD sent an observer from its HQ, Benjamin Mikfeld, to the LP convention. He was critical of the new party, but acknowledged its staying power. Interestingly, a CDU contact saw in the rise of the LP a threat to his party. Oliver Roeseler CDU marketing chief and liaison for state elections, told Poloffs the SPD would likely move to the center in order to recover votes lost on the left. This was the only strategy, he thought, that would allow the SPD to remain a "Volkspartei," i.e., a party with socially and geographically broad voter appeal. KOENIG