(23.09.2002)

A fuller analysis of the result and what it means for the left and the working class in Germany and elsewhere will appear soon.

"Exciting" and "German general election" are two thoughts that have not connected with each other in most people's minds for many years. And even when it might look close - and, just imagine, the "choices" on offer were even more than vaguely different - the way the results are counted and presented could not be done in a duller manner.

No "over to Cologne town hall to get the results", no cheers or boos, no victory speeches with the inevitable "thanks to the police", no what could those who watched the 1997 British Election Night Special might call "Portillo moments".

Instead, as soon as polls close, each television station presents its exit polls, which are revised every five minutes or so as actual declared votes are silently added. The results of German elections "emerge", like Tory leaders used to. After a couple of hours the party leaders are discussing the results live on state television. If you like, very rational, very calm, very "German" even.

The difference was, this time, the party leaders found themselves all declaring themselves victorious, while still not being sure whether they had won or not. For a time, the tory Christian Democrats and their Bavarian allies, the CSU, led by Edmund Stoiber, were thought to have won together with the liberal FDP a majority; on the other hand, it looked like Schröder's SPD and the Greens could hold on with a majority of one, even though it seemed the CDU-CSU had come out as the strongest party.

Now and again a SPD-CDU "grand coalition", led by Stoiber, was presented as the most likely outcome, as Schröder had said he would not rely on the PDS to keep him in power. Those pundits who were interested in politics and policies didn't seem to mind, as the solutions being offered to Germany's problems were all much of a neoliberal muchness anyway.

When the final results were in, "red-green" had indeed managed to hang on to government - with a majority of five.

The SPD only achieved 8,000 more votes than the CDU-CSU, both on 38.5%, the Greens' vote had gone up to 8.6%, after losing more and more votes in every local and regional election since 1998, the Liberals were on 7.4%, a far cry from the 18% they had gone out to get, and - most importantly, the PDS, the "Party of Democratic Socialism" lost 1.1% of its vote compared to four years ago, achieving only 4% - and less than the 5% required to be represented in the Bundestag.

The PDS won two constituencies in east Berlin, but the MPs will only be able to play the role of "independents" with very restricted rights in the new parliament. Many have said last Sunday's result signed the final death knell of the party, which 'emerged' out of the ruins of - but with access, at least for a while, to the bank accounts of - the former ruling "communist" party in Stalinist East Germany during the revolution of 1989-90.

The PDS has been moving to the right ever since and this time their election campaign was devoid of any noticeable political content. The General Secretary wrote an open letter to the former SPD leader and one time Sun's "most dangerous man in Europe", Oskar Lafontaine, inviting him and others to help form a new party of the left.

There was talk (from some of the PDS right wing) of a merger with the SPD. The PDS were all too aware of their coming downfall. After years of governing at regional level in the east, in coalitions with the social democrats, making one cut after another in public services, jobs, the welfare state, many of their supporters were unwilling to carry on supporting the party.

Or - if you're going to get what passes for "social democracy" thesedays anyway, why not vote for the real thing?

Droves of PDS supporters all over east Germany defected to the SPD. This was particuarly clear in the regional elections in the east German state of Mecklenburg- Vorpommerania, held on the same day. The PDS vote went down by a third, by 8%, the SPD's up by 6.3%. Both remain in coalition, with the PDS significantly weakened, for another four years.

The results also show that the SPD are the only party with almost equal appeal, east and west, though Schröder's party gained 4.6% in the east, while losing 4.2% in the west. The PDS in the west are an irrelevance on 1.1%, in the east they still managed to get 16.8% (down 5%).

What will happen now to the PDS? Will it fight back and, like Schröder superficially did in his campaign, "turn left" for the next four years to try and cheat death yet again?

It is currently not clear.

Winifred Wolf, a once-upon-a-time West German Trotskyist and for a number of years a PDS MP, said "Some kind of merger with the SPD is more than a possibility. This would be the end of this left wing project".

The coming weeks may indicate what direction the PDS will choose. The last 12 years have shown that the members (on the whole inactive - and not only due to old age), in Stalinist tradition, will take the direction their leadership tells them to.



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See also "Will Schröder hold on?" (09.09.2002)
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