BERLIN: Far behind in voter surveys and with time running out before an election in September, the last thing German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder wants is advice from his old boss.
But Oscar Lafontaine, former left-wing leader who abruptly quit in 1999, has barged into the campaign as an unwelcome author and critic with warnings that the Social Democrats (SPD) are going to lose if they continue to neglect leftist voters.
Even though Lafontaine is ostracised by party leaders and discredited in the eyes of many for quitting, analysts and pollsters agree with his view that traditional left-wing voters are abandoning the SPD, abstaining or voting for other parties because of Schroeder’s push into the political centre.
They also note that the ouster of other leading left-wing voices, fired or lured away with ambassador posts, has added to a sense of disenfranchisement among union workers as well as lower- and middle-class voters.
Schroeder, who trails conservative challenger Edmund Stoiber by about 10 points in polls ahead of the September 22 election, is expected to reach out to the SPD’s wavering left at a party congress in Berlin on Sunday.
“The traditional left-wing voters have to be mobilised at this point in the campaign,” said Dieter Roth, an analyst at the Electoral Research Group in Mannheim. “The swing voters in the centre can be always be reached later in the race.”
NO APPEAL TO LEFT WING: Once the shock of Lafontaine’s exit wore off, Schroeder took control of the party and cleared out leftists like general secretary Ottmar Schreiner, who was fired, and Rudolf Dressler, a parliamentary leader, named ambassador to Israel.
“The SPD is failing to mobilise their core voters and the absence of a galvanising figure like Lafontaine is sorely missed,” said Gerd Langguth, political scientist at Bonn University. “The left wing was decimated after he left.”
Schroeder has tried to turn the election into a choice between himself and Stoiber, an arch conservative. He has in recent months stopped referring to the SPD as the “New Centre”, a 1998 campaign slogan that makes left-wingers bristle.
Disenchantment with the SPD was palpable at the annual meeting of Germany’s DGB trades union congress in Berlin this week. Beate Eggert, an executive board member of services union Verdi, said she was not optimistic about the elections.
“The campaign needs a spark... We need to reach the hearts of the people,” said Eggert, an SPD activist, adding that many supporters felt ignored by the party leadership.
Berthold Huber, negotiator for engineering union IG Metall, said workers were frustrated that the SPD was neglecting them.
“We have the same phenomenon in Germany as we see in other European countries, that people who usually back the SPD are not going to vote, with the results we saw in France,” Huber said.
Dieter Schulte, outgoing DGB chairman, said he had expected the SPD-led government to do more for the unions. “We knew a SPD government would not lead us into paradise but we didn’t think we’d end up so close to purgatory either.”
FRUSTRATION AND ANGER: Frustration has grown as the economy slipped into recession last year and unemployment surged above four million. Anger over higher petrol taxes that hit lower-income voters hard has also overshadowed small and quickly forgotten income tax cuts.
“The grass root voters on the left are frustrated and unsatisfied,” Lafontaine said on Monday at the presentation of a book, “Die Wut Waechst” (“Rage is Rising”), that attacks leftist parties which neglect their roots.
Armed with opinion polls and regional election results showing left-wing voters shunning the SPD, Lafontaine said the Socialist Party in France was now returning to its leftist roots after a defeat and predicted Germany’s SPD would follow suit.
“The SPD can only be successful with a strong left-wing,” Lafontaine said. “The party needs to have its traditional voters coming out in strength.”
France’s Socialists, still smarting from Prime Minister Lionel Jospin’s resignation last month following his failed campaign for president, have shifted their programme to the left in a bid to win core supporters in next month’s elections.
The left in Germany is clearly restless. In a state election last month in Saxony-Anhalt where the SPD lost power, the party only won 16 percent of the workers’ vote compared to 41 percent for the Christian Democrats.—Reuters