The Party of Democratic Socialism (german: Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus, PDS) was a
democratic socialist
Democratic socialism is a left-wing political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-management within ...
political party in Germany
This article lists political parties in Germany.
The Federal Republic of Germany has a plural multi party system. The largest by members and parliament seats are the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), with its sister party, the Christian Social U ...
active between 1989 and 2007. It was the legal successor to the
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (german: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, ; SED, ), often known in English as the East German Communist Party, was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East German ...
(SED), which ruled the
German Democratic Republic
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**G ...
(East Germany) as a state party until 1990.
[Eric D. Weitz, ''Creating German Communism, 1890-1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State.'' Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997] From 1990 through to 2005, the PDS had been seen as the left-wing "party of the East". While it achieved minimal support in western Germany, it regularly won 15% to 25% of the vote in the eastern
new states of Germany
The new states of Germany () are the five re-established states of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) that unified with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) with its 10 states upon German reunification on 3 October 1990.
The new st ...
, entering coalition governments (with the
Social Democratic Party of Germany, SPD) in the federal states of
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; ; nds, Mäkelborg-Vörpommern), also known by its anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ranks 14th in po ...
and
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
.
In 2005, the PDS, renamed The Left Party.PDS (''Die Linkspartei.PDS'') entered an
electoral alliance
An electoral alliance (also known as a bipartisan electoral agreement, electoral pact, electoral agreement, electoral coalition or electoral bloc) is an association of political parties or individuals that exists solely to stand in elections.
E ...
with the Western Germany-based
Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social Justice (WASG) and won 8.7% of the vote in Germany's
September 2005 federal elections (more than double the 4% share achieved by the PDS alone in the
2002 federal election). On 16 June 2007, the two groupings merged to form a new party called
The Left (''Die Linke'').
[Dominic Heilig]
Mapping the European Left: Socialist Parties in the EU
, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, April 2016
The party had many
socially progressive policies, including support for legalisation of
same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...
and greater social
welfare
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...
for immigrants.
Internationally, the Left Party.PDS was a co-founder of the
Party of the European Left
The Party of the European Left (PEL), commonly abbreviated European Left, is a European political party that operates as an association of democratic socialist and communist political parties in the European Union and other European countries. ...
and was the largest party in the
European United Left–Nordic Green Left
European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to:
In general
* ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe
** Ethnic groups in Europe
** Demographics of Europe
** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe a ...
(GUE/NGL) group in the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
.
History
Fall of communism
On 18 October 1989, three weeks before the
fall of the Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall (german: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain and one of the series of eve ...
, longtime East German leader
Erich Honecker
Erich Ernst Paul Honecker (; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He held the posts ...
was forced to resign from his post of General Secretary of the
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (german: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, ; SED, ), often known in English as the East German Communist Party, was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East German ...
(SED), under pressure from both civil rights movements in the
German Democratic Republic
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**G ...
and the party base itself. He was replaced by
Egon Krenz
Egon Rudi Ernst Krenz (; born 19 March 1937) is a German former politician who was the last Communist leader of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) during the Revolutions of 1989. He succeeded Erich Honecker as the General Secretary ...
, who was not, however, able to stop the collapse of the party and the government. On 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, borders between East and West Germany were reopened and on 1 December 1989 the ''
Volkskammer
__NOTOC__
The Volkskammer (, ''People's Chamber'') was the unicameral legislature of the German Democratic Republic (colloquially known as East Germany).
The Volkskammer was initially the lower house of a bicameral legislature. The upper house w ...
'' deleted the constitutional provisions that gave the SED a monopoly of power in the GDR.
On 3 December 1989 Krenz and the entire SED
politburo resigned and were all expelled from the party by the
central committee, which in turn dissolved itself soon after that.
This empowered a younger generation of reform politicians in East Germany's ruling socialist class, who looked to Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev's ''
glasnost'' and ''
perestroika'' as their model for political change. Reformers like authors
Stefan Heym
Helmut Flieg or Hellmuth Fliegel (10 April 1913 – 16 December 2001) was a German writer, known by his pseudonym Stefan Heym (). He lived in the United States and trained at Camp Ritchie, making him one of the Ritchie Boys of World War II. I ...
and
Christa Wolf
Christa Wolf (; née Ihlenfeld; 18 March 1929 – 1 December 2011) was a German novelist and essayist.
Barbara Gard ...
and attorney
Gregor Gysi, lawyer of dissidents like
Robert Havemann
Robert Havemann (; 11 March 1910 – 9 April 1982) was an East German chemist and dissident.
Life and career
He studied chemistry in Berlin and Munich from 1929 to 1933, and then later received a doctorate in physical chemistry from the Kaise ...
and
Rudolf Bahro, soon began to re-invent a party infamous for its rigid
Marxist–Leninist
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialect ...
orthodoxy and
police-state methods.
A special party congress convened on 8–9 December 1989 and elected Gregor Gysi as new party Chairman, along
Hans Modrow
Hans Modrow (; born 27 January 1928) is a German politician best known as the last communist premier of East Germany.
Taking office in the middle of the Peaceful Revolution, he was the ''de facto'' leader of the country for much of the winter ...
and Wolfgang Berghofer as his deputies. By the time of a special party conference on 16 December 1989, it was obvious that the SED was no longer a Marxist-Leninist party. During the second session the party accepted a proposal from Gysi that the party adopt a new name, "Party of Democratic Socialism". Gysi felt a name change was necessary to distance the reformed party from its repressive past. The proposal came directly after a speech from
Michael Schumann highlighting the injustices perpetrated under the SED, and distancing the conference from certain high-profile party leaders – notably Honecker and the country's last Communist leader,
Egon Krenz
Egon Rudi Ernst Krenz (; born 19 March 1937) is a German former politician who was the last Communist leader of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) during the Revolutions of 1989. He succeeded Erich Honecker as the General Secretary ...
. Above all Schumann's speech opened the way for the party to reinvent itself, using a phrase that was later much quoted: "We break irrevocably with
Stalinism as a system!"
A brief transitional period followed, during which the party was named "Socialist Unity Party of Germany - Party of Democratic Socialism" (SED - PDS).
By the end of 1989, the last hardline members of the party's Central Committee had either resigned or been pushed out, followed in 1990 by 95% of the SED's 2.3 million members. On 4 February 1990, the party was formally renamed the PDS. However,
neo-Marxist
Neo-Marxism is a Marxist school of thought encompassing 20th-century approaches that amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical theory, psychoanalysis, or exi ...
and communist minority factions continued to exist. By the time the party had formally renamed itself into Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and had expelled most of the remaining prominent Communist-era leaders from its ranks—including Honecker and Krenz. Meanwhile, a faction of hardline Marxists-Leninists opposing reforms had split away from the party and had founded the
Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which included Erich and
Margot Honecker
Margot Honecker (née Feist; 17 April 1927 – 6 May 2016) was an East German politician who was an influential member of that country's Communist government until 1989. From 1963 until 1989, she was Minister of National Education (''Ministerin f ...
in its ranks.
This was not enough to save the party when it faced the voters for the first time in the
1990 East German elections—the first and only free elections held in East Germany. The party was roundly defeated, winning only 66 seats in the 400-seat ''
Volkskammer
__NOTOC__
The Volkskammer (, ''People's Chamber'') was the unicameral legislature of the German Democratic Republic (colloquially known as East Germany).
The Volkskammer was initially the lower house of a bicameral legislature. The upper house w ...
'', finishing a distant third behind the East German wings of the
Christian Democratic Union and the recently refounded
Social Democratic Party
The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology.
Active parties
Fo ...
.
Reunified Germany
In the first all-German
elections in 1990, the PDS won only 2.4% of the nationwide vote. However, a one-time exception to Germany's electoral law allowed eastern-based parties to qualify for representation if they won five percent of the vote in the former East Germany. As a result, the PDS entered the
Bundestag
The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Common ...
with 17 deputies led by Gysi, one of Germany's most charismatic and articulate politicians. However, it was only reckoned as a "group" within the Bundestag, and not a full-fledged parliamentary faction.
In the
1994 federal election, in spite of an anti-communist "Red Socks" campaign by the then-ruling
Christian Democrats
__NOTOC__
Christian democratic parties are political parties that seek to apply Christian principles to public policy. The underlying Christian democracy movement emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social ...
aimed at scaring off eastern voters, the PDS increased its vote to 4.4%. More importantly, Gysi was reelected from his Berlin seat, and three other PDS members were elected from eastern districts. Under the
German constitution
The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland) is the constitution of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany.
The West German Constitution was approved in Bonn on 8 May 1949 an ...
, a party that wins at least three directly-elected seats is eligible for
proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
, even if it falls short of the five percent threshold. This allowed it to re-enter the Bundestag with an enlarged caucus of 30 deputies. In the
1998 federal election, the party reached the high-water mark in its fortunes by tallying 5.1% of the national vote and 36 seats, thus clearing the critical 5% threshold required for guaranteed proportional representation and full parliamentary status in the Bundestag.
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 colourless general membership. Gysi's resignation in 2000 after losing a policy debate with party leftists soon spelled trouble for the PDS. In the
2002 federal election, the party's vote sank back to 4.0%, and was able to seat only two back-benchers elected directly from their districts,
Petra Pau
Petra Pau (born 9 August 1963) is a German politician of The Left. She has been a member of the Bundestag since 1998. Since 2006, she has also served as one of the Vice Presidents of the Bundestag, being the first member of her party to hold t ...
and
Gesine Lötzsch.
After the 2002 debacle, the PDS adopted a new programme and re-installed a respected moderate, long-time Gysi ally
Lothar Bisky
Lothar Bisky (17 August 1941 13 August 2013) was a German politician. He was the chairman of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor of East Germany's Socialist Unity Party (SED). In June 2007 he became co-chairman of The Left ...
, as chair. A renewed sense of self-confidence soon re-energised 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 it ranked with the CDU and SPD one of the region's three strong parties. 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 Labour and Social Justice (WASG), a leftist faction of dissident Social Democrats and trade unionists, with the merged list being called the Left Party. In the 2005 federal election the Left Party received 8.7% of the nationwide vote and won 54 seats in the German Bundestag.
Alliance with the WASG
![Wahl 2005 Linke](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Wahl_2005_Linke.jpg)
After marathon negotiations, the PDS and
Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative
Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative (german: Arbeit und soziale Gerechtigkeit – Die Wahlalternative, WASG) was a left-wing German political party founded in 2005 by activists disenchanted with the ruling Red-Green coaliti ...
(WASG), which had split from the
Social Democratic Party of Germany some months before, agreed on terms for a combined ticket to compete in the
2005 federal election and pledged to unify into a single left-wing party in 2006 or 2007. According to the pact, the parties did not compete against each another in any district. Instead, WASG candidates—including the former SPD leader,
Oskar Lafontaine
Oskar Lafontaine (; born 16 September 1943) is a German politician. He served as Minister-President of the state of Saarland from 1985 to 1998, and was federal leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD) from ...
—were nominated on the PDS electoral list. 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 co-chaired The Left's caucus in the German
Bundestag
The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Common ...
after the election.
Polls early in the summer showed the unified Left list on a "high-altitude flight", winning as much as 12% 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. 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
A political gaffe is an error in speech made by a politician.
Definition
According to Barack Obama it is:
used by the press to describe any maladroit phrase by a candidate that reveals ignorance, carelessness, fuzzy thinking, insensitivity, m ...
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.
Although Germany's once-powerful trade unions distanced themselves from The Left in the 2005 federal 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 were active supporters.
2005 federal election outcome
![FRGElections](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/FRGElections.PNG)
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 Democratic Party (61). Three Left Party MPs were directly elected on a constituency basis:
Gregor Gysi,
Gesine Lötzsch and
Petra Pau
Petra Pau (born 9 August 1963) is a German politician of The Left. She has been a member of the Bundestag since 1998. Since 2006, she has also served as one of the Vice Presidents of the Bundestag, being the first member of her party to hold t ...
, all in Eastern
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
constituencies. In addition, 51 Left Party MPs were elected through the
party list element of Germany's
Additional Member System of
proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
. These include
Lothar Bisky
Lothar Bisky (17 August 1941 13 August 2013) was a German politician. He was the chairman of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor of East Germany's Socialist Unity Party (SED). In June 2007 he became co-chairman of The Left ...
,
Katja Kipping
Katja Kipping (born 18 January 1978) is a German politician of The Left party who is serving as Senator for Integration, Labour and Social Affairs in the Berlin state government since December 2021. She was previously a member of the Bundestag ...
,
Oskar Lafontaine
Oskar Lafontaine (; born 16 September 1943) is a German politician. He served as Minister-President of the state of Saarland from 1985 to 1998, and was federal leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD) from ...
, and
Paul Schäfer
Paul Schäfer Schneider (4 December 1921 – 24 April 2010) was a Nazi, child rapist, German-Chilean Christian minister and the founder and leader of a sect and agricultural commune of 300 German immigrants called Colonia Dignidad (''Dignity ...
. 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
Hakkı Keskin (born 12 February 1943 in Maçka, Trabzon, Turkey) is a Turkish-German politician with the Left Party (''die Linkspartei''), formerly of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and a professor of Political Science. He was the ...
, German
Federal Constitutional Court
The Federal Constitutional Court (german: link=no, Bundesverfassungsgericht ; abbreviated: ) is the supreme constitutional court for the Federal Republic of Germany, established by the constitution or Basic Law () of Germany. Since its in ...
justice
Wolfgang Neskovic, and the former SPD leader in Baden-Württemberg,
Ulrich Maurer.
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" () 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 ), 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. 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%—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 remains 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 opposed the merger of the two parties scheduled for June 2007, the new party –
The Left – was on Germany's political stage before the federal elections.
In state and local government
The PDS had experience as a junior coalition partner in two
federal states
A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governi ...
—
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
and
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; ; nds, Mäkelborg-Vörpommern), also known by its anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ranks 14th in po ...
—where it co-governed until 2006 with the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Political responsibility has burnished the Left's reputation as a pragmatic, rather than ideological party. It remained strong in local government in eastern Germany, with more than 6,500 town councillors and 64 elected mayors. The party continued to win eastern voters by emphasizing political competence and refused to be labelled as merely a "protest party", although it certainly attracted millions of protest voters in the federal election, profiting from growing dissatisfaction with high
unemployment
Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refere ...
and cutbacks in public
health insurance, unemployment benefits, and
labour rights
Labor rights or workers' rights are both legal rights and human rights relating to labor relations between workers and employers. These rights are codified in national and international labor and employment law. In general, these rights influe ...
.
Controversies
Stasi connections
After German reunification, leading members of the PDS were frequently suspected of having connections to East Germany's secret police, the
Stasi (State Security Service). 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. At about the same time, the media revealed that
Lutz Heilmann, a Left Party Bundestag deputy from the state of Schleswig-Holstein, had worked for several years for the Stasi. 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 Stasi involvement. Nevertheless, the Left Party membership in Schleswig-Holstein narrowly passed a vote of confidence in Heilmann, and he continued to serve in the Bundestag.
Charges of a Stasi past were also a factor in the Bundestag's decision to reject
Lothar Bisky
Lothar Bisky (17 August 1941 13 August 2013) was a German politician. He was the chairman of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor of East Germany's Socialist Unity Party (SED). In June 2007 he became co-chairman of The Left ...
as the Left Party's candidate for the post of parliamentary vice president. 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 withdrew his nomination. Five months later, the Left Party's
Petra Pau
Petra Pau (born 9 August 1963) is a German politician of The Left. She has been a member of the Bundestag since 1998. Since 2006, she has also served as one of the Vice Presidents of the Bundestag, being the first member of her party to hold t ...
was elected vice president.
In the
Saxony
Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...
, the chairman of the Left Party group, Peter Porsch, faced losing his mandate in the Saxon parliament because of his alleged Stasi past. In May 2006, all parties represented in the parliament, except the Left Party, voted to initiate proceedings against Porsch. However, in November, the state's constitutional court dismissed the complaint against Porsch on technical grounds.
SED assets
The SED had sequestered money overseas in secret accounts, including some which turned up in Liechtenstein in 2008. This was returned to the German government, as the PDS had rejected claims to overseas SED assets in 1990. The vast majority of domestic SED assets were transferred to the GDR government before unification. Legal issues over back taxes possibly owed by the PDS on former SED assets were eventually settled in 1995, when an agreement between the PDS and the Independent Commission on Property of Political Parties and Mass Organizations of the GDR was confirmed by the Berlin Administrative Court.
[Franz Oswald 2002, ''The Party That Came Out Of The Cold War'', pp. 69–71]
Election results
Federal Parliament (''Bundestag'')
''Volkskammer'' (East Germany)
European Parliament
See also
*
The Left
*
Politics of Germany
Germany is a democratic and federal parliamentary republic, where federal legislative power is vested in the (the parliament of Germany) and the (the representative body of the , Germany's regional states).
The federal system has, since 1 ...
*
List of political parties in Germany
*''
Bundestag
The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Common ...
'' (Federal Assembly of Germany)
References
Further reading
*
*Hough, Dan (2001). ''The Fall and Rise of the PDS in Eastern Germany'' (1st ed.). The University of Birmingham Press.
*Oswald, Franz (2002). ''The Party That Came Out of the Cold War : The Party of Democratic Socialism in United Germany''. Praeger Publishers.
*Thompson, Peter (2005) ''The Crisis of the German Left. The PDS, Stalinism and the Global Economy'' Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford.
External links
Left Party website in GermanIngo Schmidt, "The Left Opposition in Germany. Why Is the Left So Weak When So Many Are Looking for Political Alternatives?", in Monthly Review, May 2007Ingar Solty "The Historic Significance of the New German Left Party"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Party Of Democratic Socialism (Germany)
Defunct socialist parties in Germany
Organizations of the Revolutions of 1989
Political parties established in 1990
Political parties disestablished in 2007
Peaceful Revolution
1990 establishments in Germany
2007 disestablishments in Germany