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Topic: Far-right party marks gains in Germany
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Wilf Day
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3276
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posted 25 September 2004 01:41 PM
The press is missing the real story: the swing to the left.Both Brandenburg (the state surrounding Berlin) and Saxony have "grand coalition" governments: the social-democratic SPD and the conservative CDU. Brandenburg's was led by the SPD, Saxony's by the CDU, but they were both pushing deep cuts to unemployment insurance benefits and social assistance. Voters rebelled. In Brandenburg the result was a swing of 7.4% from the Social Democrats. The Official Opposition, the left-socialist PDS, picked up 4.7%. Another 1.7% went to the Greens. The other 1% splintered. The CDU also dropped, by 7.1%. From these voters, 4.9% splintered into several groups like the Family Party, and the liberal FDP picked up 1.4%. The far-right DVU picked up only 0.8%, going from five seats to six, while the PDS went from 22 to 29. The map of single-seat results is remarkable: the pink PDS dominates. (You might think the leftists were red and the social democrats were pink, but the SPD claimed red first,I guess. ) Looks like a swing to the Left to me. Yet the press screams "neo-Nazis take seats for the first time." (Oops, the DVU was already there for the last five years. Oh, well.) In Saxony the results were not so different. The left made a net gain of 3.0%, when the weak SPD lost another 0.9% while the Opposition PDS picked up 1.4% and the Greens 2.5%. The conservative CDU lost massively, dropping 15.8%. The old far-right Republikaners quit, so their 1.5% from 1999 adds to the far-right NPD's 1.4% to give them a 1999 base of 2.9%. They added another 6.3% from the CDU, making 9.2%. But the other 9.5% of CDU votes went elsewhere: 4.8% to the liberal FDP, 1.7% splintered to groups like a firearms party, and as noted above, 3% moved to the left. (In 1999 the CDU swept all of the 60 local seats. This time the PDS managed to win four of them and the SPD one; still a conservative map, but again the shift was to the left.) So in 2004, compared with 1999, there are three more parties in the Saxony Landtag: the far-right NPD, the Greens, and the liberal FDP. But only the NPD is news. The left gains 6 seats, the centrist liberals gain 7, the conservatives lose 21 while the far right gains only 12. (Note: four more seats this time.) This is a swing to the right? Saxony has an interesting gender balance: of the 124 deputies, only 34 are women. But the PDS delegation is 16 men, 15 women. The SPD is 9 men, 4 women. The Greens are 3 and 3. But the liberals are 6 and 1, the conservatives 45 and 10, and the NDP 11 and 1. Hardly a surprise.
From: Port Hope, Ontario | Registered: Oct 2002
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Wilf Day
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3276
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posted 25 September 2004 08:01 PM
quote: Originally posted by NDP Newbie: Is the PDS still a Stalinist party?
No. Is it even still Marxist? They call themselves "the socialists: a socialist party left of the Social Democrats." Within it is a "Marxist Forum" and another traditionalist faction called the "Communist Platform." The preamble to the PDS Programme says they want to "participate together with others in the development of an alternative, which has liberty, equality, justice and solidarity as a goal. "We give ourselves this program in the tradition of the fights against capitalistic exploitation, ecological destruction, political suppression and criminal wars." They note "the crimes which were committed in the name of socialism and communism" and promise to practice an "irreversible break with ignoring democracy and rights of political liberty, as was done in many left parties like the old SED." As well, it should be noted that the SPD has found the PDS an acceptable coalition partner in the former east German state of Mecklenburg - Western Pomerania and the city-state of Berlin. [ 25 September 2004: Message edited by: Wilfred Day ]
From: Port Hope, Ontario | Registered: Oct 2002
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