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

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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