Left shows its cards

GERMAN President Horst Koehler has until July 21 to decide whether or not to dissolve the Bundestag. Social Democratic Party (SPD) Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (pictured) lost a vote of confidence deliberately on July 1 in order to trigger early elections following a series of crushing defeats in state polls.

The last straw came in late May, when the Greens and SPD, the latter after decades of dominance, lost to the right-wing Christian Democrats (CDU) and centre-right FDP in Germany's largest state North Rhine-Westphalia.

All parties are now preparing for early elections, with the CDU and FDP far ahead in opinion polls. On the left, however, a new left force has emerged.

In the wake of the defeat in North Rhine-Westphalia, former SPD president "Red" Oskar Lafontaine left his party and issued a call for the left-wing Party of Democratic Socialism and WASG (also called the Electoral Alternative) to form a joint list to contest the forthcoming general election.

Following heated debate, the PDS opened its electoral structures for WASG candidates and, last weekend, it held party congresses in a number of states to decide candidates for a unified list.

German electors have two votes and are asked to choose both a directly elected individual, which make up half of the Bundestag's seats, and from party lists for each of the 16 states.

These votes are counted and list candidates corresponding to the figures for each party make up the other half of the seats.

The most important PDS congress was in the eastern state of Saxony, where the party is very strong. Across the east as a whole, it regularly gains 20 per cent of the vote or more.

The original top candidate in Saxony, actor Peter Sodann, who plays a police investigator in a popular Sunday night crime series, quit the race last week after being threatened with the sack by state broadcaster MDR.

The PDS dubbed this scandal a renewal of the "Berufsverbote," the name for a period in the 1970s when left-wing civil servants were laid off for political reasons.

Another Berufsverbote victim was placed seventh on the list at the Saxony party congress. A former Green MP and a founding member of the Green Party, she was denied civil servant status in the German post office in 1976 on the grounds of her then Communist Party (DKP) membership.

A current DKP member, Leo Mayer, is 10th on the list and has a realistic chance of entering parliament - opinion polls have placed support for the Left Party, the new name for the PDS, steady at 10 per cent.

The DKP is also supporting the new left alliance. Trade union leader Sabine Zimmermann is third on the party list.

WASG executive committe member Axel Troost, an economist from Bremen, is at number two. The list is headed by Katja Kipping, a 27-year-old deputy president of the PDS.

In Saxony-Anhalt, the top PDS candidate is Petra Sitte, who leads the party in the state parliament.

In the west German state of Lower Saxony joint WASG founder Herbert Schui is third on the list. He is a Marxist economist who taught in Hamburg until recently and left the SPD 18 months ago after almost 40 years as a member. The Lower Saxony list is headed by Dieter Dehm and Dorothee Menzner respectively. Both are outspoken leftwingers within the PDS. DKP member Achim Bigus is placed sixth on the list.

Heated debate about the new left project has taken place within all working-class organisations. Some parts of the trade union movement, especially the "traditionalist" wing of IG Metall and left-wing ver.di members, have expressed support for the project.

Other unions, like rail union Transnet and chemical industries union IG BCE, lean towards Schroeder's SPD and his neoliberal Agenda 2010. German TUC president Michael Sommer is also supportive of Schroeder.

Trotskyite groups like SAV - an ex-SPD splinter group - and Linksruck, the German section of the Socialist Workers Party, have long been part of WASG.

The DKP has always supported the foundation of WASG, but has decided to remain independent as an organisation.

However, the PDS and WASG have vowed to form a joint party within the next two years. Technically, all left candidates are currently running on open PDS lists.

Lafontaine caused controversy recently by branding new immigrant workers "fremdarbeiter," a word used during the nazi era. His allies swiftly distanced themselves from his attempt to win right-wing voters by agitating against immigrants.

Nevertheless, he will run as a top candidate in the election campaign alongside PDS star man Gregor Gysi.

Some leftwingers inside the PDS, such as the communist platform, fear that the whole project will further marginalise left-wingers within the PDS.

Members of the DKP central committee warned at a meeting last weekend that the project might end up becoming just another social democratic party.

Nevertheless, it was decided not only to support the Left Party in the general elections but also to stand candidates like Mayer, a member of the party's secretariat, and Bigus on its lists.