By IPS Correspondents
BERLIN, Jul 22 2005 (IPS)

A spectre is haunting Germany, the spectre of a brand new Left Party emerging as the third strongest force in the general election scheduled for Sep. 18.

The party still in the making comprises a breakaway faction of the ruling Social Democrats (SPD) and a political grouping that was constituted as a successor to the communist SED.

Formally known as the Socialist Unity Party, SED ruled the German Democratic Republic (GDR) for more than four decades in the aftermath of World War II that resulted in the division of Germany, a price paid for genocide committed by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.

Until the unification of two Germanys on Oct 3, 1990, the GDR remained under the Soviet sphere of influence. West Germany liberated by the Western allies went the way of the free market.

The new Left Party has been formed at a critical juncture in post-war German history: the country’s affluent and technologically powerful economy, the fifth largest in the world, has become one of the slowest growing in the euro currency zone.

The euro zone consists of Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain.

The modernisation and integration of the eastern German economy continues to be a costly long-term process, with annual transfers from west to east amounting to roughly 70 billion dollars.

Germany’s aging population (some 19 percent are 65 and above), combined with high chronic unemployment affecting some five million people or nearly 11percent of the workforce, has pushed social security outlays to a level exceeding contributions from workers.

The federal expenditure amounts to 1.3 trillion dollars against revenues of 1.2 trillion dollars (a trillion is a thousand billion). The fall in government revenues and the rise in expenditure has raised the deficit above the European Union’s 3 percent limit.

Germany’s accumulated public debt amounts to 65.8 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

This forced the coalition government of SPD and the Green Party to introduce significant cuts in the social welfare system, causing considerable disaffection among the general public and jeopardising the social and political consensus for which Germany was envied for decades.

This formed the backdrop to the socio-political situation that German Federal President Horst Koehler had to take into account when he announced his decision to give a go-ahead for early elections. In a national television broadcast Thursday (Jul. 21) Koehler said he had conceded Chancellor Schroeder’s request and was dissolving the federal parliament Bundestag ahead of new polls.

Schroeder had urged Koehler to advance the elections by one full year after he succeeded in securing a "vote of constructive no-confidence". This was made possible by the decision of government ministers and some members of parliament to abstain from expressing their confidence in the Chancellor, as desired by the parliamentary whips of the coalition parties SPD and the Greens.

The vote of constructive no-confidence is an easy but controversial tool envisaged by the German constitution to go in for early elections. The tool was deployed twice – in 1972 and 1983 – with a view to holding early elections.

Chancellor Schroeder told the parliament on Jul. 1 and subsequently in a written communication to the President that his social reform policies were meeting with resistance from among the members of the parliamentary parties forming the coalition government. For this reason, it was not possible for him to push through his reform agenda.

The Chancellor’s argument has not been accepted as genuine by some members of parliament belonging to the ruling parties. Precisely this devolved a heavy responsibility on the Federal President, particularly as his decision can in principle be challenged by the Constitutional Court.

Two members of parliament have announced that they will challenge the president’s decision in the country’s highest court. But it is generally believed that the Constitutional Court will not call into question the head of state’s decision.

It would rather ask the parliament to amend the Constitution in such a way that a vote of constructive no-confidence, which has a smack of manipulation, is replaced by a more transparent mechanism.

Wolfgang Thierse, the parliament’s speaker, said Thursday that he could think of an amendment empowering the parliament to dissolve itself "by two-thirds or even three-fourths" majority.

But that is not an issue for the forthcoming elections. The burning issue is the state of the economy and of the social welfare system. Because of a strong sense of uncertainty about a secure future among large sections of the people, SPD and the Green Party lost the country’s most populous and prestigious state of North-Rhine Westphalia last June to a government headed by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

CDU in that state has formed a coalition government with the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP). North-Rhine Westphalia is seen as a precursor to a conservative-liberal government at the federal level in Berlin.

CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) are expected to bag some 43 percent of the vote. Assuming that the FDP gets between 6 and 7 percent, as pollsters expect, Germany will for the first time have a government headed by a woman Chancellor, Angela Merkel who presides over the CDU.

But CDU-CSU and FDP cannot hide their anxiety about some 8-11 percent of the vote being predicted for the new Left Party, an alliance of the former communist SED’s successor PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) and the breakaway social democrats’ leftist grouping, the Alternative Vote for Labour and Social Justice (WASG).

The left-wing alliance is being led by two flamboyant and highly controversial leaders, Oskar Lafontaine and Gregor Gysi.

Lafontaine left the SPD last June, which he headed from 1995 to 1999. Gysi quit before completing one full year in office as senator for economy and labour with the city government of Berlin.

Lafontaine argues that the Left Party is the only real opposition to the neo-liberal mainstream. He has called for higher wages and a government spending programme to push the economy.

The left-wingers argue that their mission is to establish a strong force for social justice in Germany. "It is our duty to bring our forces together, for the sake of the socially deprived," Lothar Bisky, chief of the PDS told the newspaper Berliner Zeitung.

The last major change in the German political system came when Green Party candidates were voted to parliament in 1987. The new left-wing alliance has the potential to bring another significant change to the political spectrum.

*Peter Deselaers in Berlin contributed to this report.

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