Editors: David Lazar, Margaret Dornfeld Date: March 5, 1999
SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC LEADERS BRIEFLY REOPEN DEBATE ON STANCE TOWARD THE PARTY OF DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM
The Social Democrats have an eastern problem. Voters in the east, like their fellow citizens in the west, do not often give any one party a clear majority in state elections. Coalitions are thus a fact of political life, a not entirely agreeable fact for the Social Democrats. Neither of the parties the SPD usually allies with in the west - the FDP and Alliance 90/The Greens - has a stable base of support in the east. When the Social Democrats find themselves in a position to chose a coalition partner there, they face a choice between the Christian Democrats, their main rivals, or the reform communists of the Party of Democratic Socialism, the successor to the German Democratic Republic's ruling Socialist Unity Party. The PDS regularly wins between a fifth and a quarter of the vote in the east, making it one of the three strongest parties in the region, and regularly signals its eagerness for a modus vivendi with the SPD. While that might make the PDS an ideal coalition partner in the eyes of some Social Democrats, many SPD leaders in the west still want to keep the reform communists at arm's length, as was made clear this week. SPD national chair Oskar Lafontaine and general manager Ottmar Schreiner raised the PDS issue over the weekend (February 27-28) by saying the party's 1994 "Dresden Declaration" forswearing any form of cooperation with the PDS had been rendered void by subsequent developments. The Social Democrats have governed Saxony-Anhalt since 1994 with the de facto cooperation of the PDS, they noted, and formed Germany's first "red-red" coalition with the PDS in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern last fall (TWIG 11/6/98, p.2). Their comments immediately drew fire from the staunchly anti-PDS Christian Democrats, who accused Lafontaine of wanting to create a "leftist republic" with the help of the reform communists. It also prompted critical, albeit less polemical, comment from a number of other Social Democrats, some of whom urged that the party address the issue of its relationship with the PDS in a comprehensive internal debate. Such a debate is entirely unnecessary, Lafontaine countered at a meeting of the party leadership in Bonn Monday (March 1). The Social Democrats have been at odds over the PDS for the past ten years and have yet to formulate a common stance on working with the reform communists, he noted. There is, however, agreement that the question should be left to the state parties in the east to decide for themselves. Lest anyone misunderstand him, Lafontaine added that he looks upon the PDS as a "political opponent" that holds positions fundamentally at odds with the SPD's on the most important national issues. Cooperation with the PDS on the national level was categorically ruled out by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who told reporters after Monday's meeting that the Social Democrats will have nothing to do with the PDS in the Bundestag so long as he heads the government. __________________________
Ken Lawrence