i fing two things interesting, in a tongue-and-cheek way: that the left party is being accused of moving to the left! and that their proposed minimum wage is the lousy equivalent of $13.60. given our stereotypes of european welfare states: bfd!
Interview with Left Party Leader Oskar Lafontaine 'We Want to Overthrow Capitalism' May 14, 2009
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,624880,00.html#ref=nlint
In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Left Party Chairman Oskar Lafontaine speaks about his party's chances in the upcoming elections, its alleged drift to the left and why Angela Merkel needs to work through certain aspects of her communist past.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Lafontaine, is Germany embroiled in a class struggle?
Oskar Lafontaine: The US billionaire Warren Buffett answered this question much better than the Left Party ever could. "It's class warfare; my class is winning," he said. To which I would add: The class that has been losing for years is starting to stir again.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: "Greed, avarice, selfishness and irresponsibility of the ruling class," the rich who "want to make even more money out of a lot of money" -- your party's draft platform for the upcoming German national elections sounds like Marx and Engels. Do you really believe that you can appeal to voters with such strong slogans?
Lafontaine: When the German president (Horst Kohler talks about "monsters" and (Social Democratic Party leader) Franz Muntefering speaks of "locusts" and "losers," then we have actually made it into the center of society.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The first draft was much more cautious. In fact, it was so moderate that your comrades from the party's left wing protested and accused it of sounding like a watered-down version of the Social Democrats (SPD). Do the more moderate elements in your party no longer have any say?
Lafontaine: We tightened up the draft. In the process, certain points became clearer. And it's totally normal for different factions of a party to write different documents. That's something I've been familiar with now for over 40 years.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You have even introduced the term "democratic socialism" into the draft.
Lafontaine: Nobody in our party's executive committee is naive enough to think that we could change our society so much over the next four years that it could rightfully be called democratic socialist. But if the SPD is talking about democratic socialism, one will surely forgive the Left Party for using the term (laughs).
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your Left Party colleague Sahra Wagenknecht does not want to fix capitalism; she wants to overthrow it. What do you think?
Lafontaine: The entire Left Party sees it that way. We want to overthrow capitalism.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How would that be possible?
Lafontaine: We will change the economic order. That begins with regulating international financial markets. When we first put this subject on the agenda, our critics were still in the process of rolling out the red carpet for financial capitalism. Financial capitalism has failed. We need to democratize the economy. The workforce needs to have a far greater say in their companies than has been the case so far.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What should we expect to happen once you've overthrown capitalism?
Lafontaine: A society in which every person enjoys the highest possible degree of freedom.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you seriously believe that our society does not provide enough freedom?
Lafontaine: We have a society in which people are excluded from work and live on Hartz IV (ed's: Germany reduced monthly welfare payments for the long-term unemployed introduced as part of structural reforms known as Agenda 2010 implemented in 2003 by the then- government, a coalition of the SPD and Green Party) and in which the educational system reinforces social inequalities. Such a society is not really a free society.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your candidate lists for the parliamentary elections show a clear trend toward the far left within your party. Carl Wechselberg, your expert on budget issues in the Berlin city government, has accused you of leading the Left Party astray (ed's note: Citing differences of opinion with his party, Wechselberg left the Left Party after this interview was conducted). What is your response?
Lafontaine: The decisions of the Left Party are supported by large majorities. There are always dissenting opinions. In regard to the candidate lists, our reformist forces talk about a leftward shift, while the left wing thinks it sees a shift to the right.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But in North Rhine-Westphalia, a series of candidates from the far left of the party hold prominent places on the list.
Lafontaine: Yes, but on the other hand, there are state party organizations in which the left wing of the party sees all the candidates coming from the right wing of the party.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where?
Lafontaine: I'm convinced that the mixture of the candidates on our list reflects the range of positions within the party.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But your draft platform for the national elections doesn't exactly sound balanced. You want to do a number of things, including abolishing Hartz IV, reintroducing 65 as the retirement age (in 2007, the German government increased the legal age to collect a full pension to 67), pulling the German army out of Afghanistan, introducing a ?10 ($13.6) minimum wage and launching an annual public investment program worth ?100 billion. With such goals, the Left Party will never be able to enter into a coalition with any other party.
Lafontaine: We have always been very clear about our prerequisites for entering into a coalition. The SPD and the Greens have both significantly changed their positions on Hartz IV. Likewise, on the issues of minimum wage and pensions, those parties have made a certain degree of movement. And when it comes to the issue of withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan, the SPD and the Greens will probably only come to their senses once US President Barack Obama realizes that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won and withdraws his military.
The Christian Democrats of Roland Koch came out on top in the state parliamentary elections with 37.2 percent of the vote. Still, the result was hardly better than the 36.8 percent the CDU received in 2008, the worst result for the party in Hesse since 1966.
The CDU will be able to form a coalition with the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP), which increased their vote total substantially over a year ago to 16.2 percent.
The Social Democrats achieved a horrific result of just 23.7 percent. The total is the SPD's worst ever in Hesse and is fully 13 percentage points worse than a year ago. The Greens improved substantially to 13.7 percent and the far-left Left Party came out with 5.4 percent, slightly better than the 5.1 percent the party polled in Jan. 2008.
Germany's president is a largely ceremonial position and is chosen by a body known as the Federal Assembly, made up of parliamentarians in Berlin along with representatives from state parliaments. Even if the position is non-political, the vote this year, coming just months before the general elections, has political implications.
Should current President Horst Kohler, who has the support of the CDU and the FDP, be re-elected, it could give Merkel a small boost going into September. But the SPD have also entered a candidate, Gesine Schwan. Most pundits assume that Koher will be re-elected, particularly given that a number of Green Party members -- and some within the SPD -- have hinted that they would throw their support behind the incumbent. But the fact that the Left Party also has a candidate, the ex- television actor Peter Sodann, could open the door for Schwan. Should Kohler not receive an absolute majority in the first two rounds, only a simple majority would be necessary in the third, meaning that if the SPD, the Greens and the Left Party all opted to support Schwan, she could theoretically unseat Kohler though it is not seen as likely.
Should that happen, however, it would put Steinmeier in a bind. After all, the SPD has said it doesn't want to work with the Left Party on the national stage.
Currently governed by the Christian Democrats, polls indicate that the CDU likely won't be able to hold on to its leadership position. The Left Party especially has found a huge increase in support in the western German state. The party won just 2.3 percent of the vote four years ago but polls now show that over 20 percent of Saarland voters support the Left Party.
Many commentators in Germany see Saarland as the best candidate for the first SPD-Left Party alliance in western Germany. The elections are in late August, meaning such a "red-red" coalition could come just as German voters are heading to the polls for late- September general elections. That would likely hurt Steinmeier's chances.
The eastern German state of Saxony voted strongly in favor of the Christian Democrats in 2004 and looks set to do so again this year. An early November survey found that 42 percent of voters in the state will cast their ballots for the CDU. The state has been governed together by the CDU and SPD for the last four years, but the liberal FDP has gained support, opening the door to a possible CDU/FDP alliance.
The Left Party is strong, polling 20 percent, but likely won't be strong enough to form a majority with the SPD, despite the latter party's increase in popularity since 2004. The neo-Nazi party NPD, which made international headlines in 2004 by raking in over 9 percent of the Saxony vote, appears headed for embarrassment. It is polling far below 5 percent, the minimum necessary for state parliamentary representation.
Polls taken last autumn showed that Christian Democratic Governor Dieter Althaus was already facing a difficult campaign challenge prior to his Jan. 1 skiing accident. On New Year's Day, he was involved in a horrific collision at a ski resort in Austria that sent him to the hospital with severe head injuries. The woman he ran into died. His political future is now uncertain, given that, even if he does return to full health, he may have to face charges of involuntary manslaughter.
Pre-accident polls indicated that Althaus' CDU, which won 43 percent of the vote in 2004, could count on only 33 percent support. Such a result could open the way to coalition of the SPD (18 percent support) and the Left Party (30 percent support), though it is unclear whether the SPD would be interested in joining such an alliance as the junior partner. The Green Party may likewise sneak into the Thuringia parliament.
In 2004 elections, Germany seemed to take a page out of the US election handbook, with the SPD and CDU ending up nearly in a dead heat. Once all the votes were counted, it was the CDU which nosed ahead with 35.2 percent of the vote, a weak result that led to breathless speculation about all manner of different possible coalitions.
In the end, the CDU and the SPD joined forces for only the second such coalition in Germany's post-war history. Even though the Social Democrats have lost considerable traction since then, there is little to indicate that 2009 will be any different. The SPD has said it will not ally with the Left Party on the national level, and the CDU's preferred partner, the FDP, likely will not win enough votes to overcome the CDU's mediocre form. Should Merkel once again emerge at the head of a grand coalition, it will be the first time in German history that such an alliance gets re- elected.
The eastern German state of Brandenburg has been governed by a "grand coalition" pairing the SPD and the CDU for the last four years. Polls indicate that there is little to prevent the arrangement from continuing. But the Left Party is also very strong in Brandenburg, meaning the SPD could opt to partner with the far left. Because the election is on the same day as general elections, the Brandenburg vote will not have nationwide implications.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your positions are all extremely firm demands; but politics requires compromises.
Lafontaine: We are also prepared to make compromises, but every party has certain positions that cannot be ceded. The Greens, for example, would never vote for nuclear power.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You recently proposed raising the top income tax rate to 80 percent. Do you expect to be taken seriously?
Lafontaine: That is not in our draft manifesto. But, for a long time, I have been calling for that to happen with incomes that are 20 times or more the average salary. Nobody is so productive that he deserves to make more than 20 times the salary of a skilled worker.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: In the past, your poll results have been better. The anti-capitalist Left Party is stagnating in its approval ratings or losing ground precisely in the middle of the deepest economic crisis since 1929. How do you explain that?
Lafontaine: It's true that the Left Party needs to become stronger, but past experience shows that governments tend to make slight gains in times of crisis. Granted, support for the FDP (ed's note: the business-friendly Free Democratic Party) is still growing, but I would already venture to predict that a Christian Democrats/FDP coalition would not have a majority after the parliamentary elections.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: And then?
Lafontaine: Although the (conservative) Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is stagnating in comparison to the last national election and the SPD is losing support, there's a chance we will see a continuation of the grand coalition (ed's note: the current CDU-SPD coalition government). That is exactly what the SPD's leadership sees as their salvation, so they are only pretending to run an election campaign.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You once said that former SPD leader Kurt Beck could become chancellor immediately if he were to push through the minimum wage, restore the previous pension system, abolish Hartz IV and pull the German military out of Afghanistan. Does this offer apply to the SPD's current candidate for chancellor, Frank-Walter Steinmeier?
Lafontaine: Of course. Our positions are not connected to individuals but to content. If Mr. Steinmeier were to endorse such positions, he could become chancellor tomorrow.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to continue to measure the Left Party by its attitude toward East Germany's past.
Lafontaine: An interesting psychological case. People tend to accuse other people of their own mistakes. Ms. Merkel needs to deal with her own past in East Germany and that of her own party. She was an FDJ functionary for agitation and propaganda (ed's note: The FDJ was an official youth movement in communist East Germany). As such she belonged to the fighting reserve of the party (ed's note: the Communist Socialist Unity Party (SED)).
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What's at issue here is how one sees East Germany, 20 years after the fall of the Wall. One has the impression that this issue has not been definitively resolved within your party.
Lafontaine: The PDS has, as one of the Left Party's predecessor parties, dealt with the question of its relationship to East Germany at many party conferences and in the papers (ed's note: For an explanation of the PDS and the parties that united to form the Left Party, please click here http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,365675,00.ht Only the CDU has not done so. It swallowed the assets of two of the SED's satellite parties, and otherwise covers up its past with a cloak of silence.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Was East Germany a dictatorship in which the rule of law did not apply?
Lafontaine: The GDR was not a state based on the rule of law -- that is a much more precise answer.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: In a few days, the German president will be elected. Will the SPD's candidate, Gesine Schwan, be able to rely on your vote in a possible second or third round of voting, should the incumbent, Horst Kohler, not achieve an absolute majority in the first round?
Lafontaine: We have yet to make a decision on this issue. We will discuss how to proceed after the first round of voting, should Horst Kohler not already have been confirmed in office.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Does that mean that your own candidate, Peter Sodann, would be a good fit for the Left Party?
Lafontaine: A lot of media outlets have written about him in a very disparaging way. We continue to believe that there must be a candidate for the highest political office who castigates Hartz IV and wars that violate international law.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You would like to become governor of Saarland. In a survey conducted in that federal state, the Left Party lost 5 percentage points and is now only supported by 18 percent of the population. Will party leader Lafontaine no longer emerge as the likely election victor?
Lafontaine: And other polls say other things. I'm convinced that we will get 20-plus percent of the vote in Saarland.