The PDS representing almost 50% of the voters of the former East Berlin will be responsible for 3 out of the 8 departments: those for health, social affairs, and consumer protection, arguably the less important ones.
Gregor Gysi former chairperson and their leading candidate in the election has said: "The city is so bankrupt that it can now be entrusted to us."
Usually coalitions in German politics harm the smaller parties. But in this complicated political dance, while the PDS is seriously compromising whatever radical claims it had, it also breaks through a taboo against SPD supporters voting for it. It is now a fraction ahead of the greens in national opinion polls, and has a chance of moving German politics as a whole slightly more to the left.
It is also a distant echo of some of what was good in the tradition of eastern European socialism, in a competitive capitalist environment, and gives a recognition to the feeling among former east Germans that they have been colonised.
Chris Burford
London