Germany: WASG rebels suspended

IN AN unprecedented but not unexpected act, the national executive
of Germany’s new left party, WASG (Election alternative – work and
social justice), suspended the regional executives in the federal
states of Berlin and Mecklenburg Vorpommern.

Tanja Niemeier, Committee for a Workers’
International

By implementing those decisions, they have overruled the
democratic decisions of the regional sections to stand independently
and, subsequently, against the Left Party.PDS (L.PDS – the former
East German ‘Communist’ Party); the party the WASG is about to merge
with on a national scale.

WASG was formally established in 2005 and is led by Oskar
Lafontaine, former chair of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Standing in the last September’s federal elections WASG and the L.PDS
won 8.7% of the vote and secured 54 MPs.

There is a special situation in Berlin. Since 2001, the L.PDS has
been in a coalition government with the SPD which has carried out
privatisations, social and wage cuts, in order to "consolidate the
budget", at the expense of the working class and youth.

When the WASG was first set up, it agreed as one of the founding
principles not to join any government that carries out cuts,
privatisations and redundancies.

Lucy Redler is one of the suspended regional executive members and
SAV (Socialist Alternative, the Socialist Party’s German counterpart)
member. She explained that if the Berlin WASG stuck to its founding
principles and presented a genuine left-wing, working-class
alternative, the WASG would have no choice but to stand against all
the established parties in Berlin, including the L.PDS. This position
was confirmed by two regional party conferences and in a ballot
amongst the whole of the WASG membership.

The suspension marks a further shift to the right by the newly
formed party. The national executive is introducing a method whereby
political differences are ‘solved’ by administrative means.

In the past few weeks, the Berlin membership has successfully
started campaigning in order to collect the necessary 2,200
signatures for the election list.

The national executive selected an MP to be in charge of the
Berlin WASG and who is expected to try and withdraw the nomination to
stand. The Berlin WASG regional executive is ready to challenge the
decisions legally as well as politically.

A regional party conference is taking place on 16 May and a
national ‘left opposition’ meeting, which is getting a big echo
amongst the membership nationally, will take place next weekend.