A party conference to elect a leader instead exposed what is fast becoming a split, writes DEREK SCALLYin Berlin
GERMANY’S LEFT Party is facing an existential crisis after a leading figure conceded that the organisation is being consumed by “hatred”.
A party conference to elect a new leadership duo descended into a proxy war between increasingly embittered eastern and western party wings – and their respective leaders, Gregor Gysi and Oskar Lafontaine.
Mr Gysi told delegates that a poisonous, denunciatory atmosphere prevailed in the Bundestag parliamentary party he leads thanks to what he called the “patronising” attitude of western Left Party members towards eastern colleagues.
“If one group tries to triumph over the other, perhaps it’s time to think of a split,” he said.
Mr Lafontaine shot back that “there was no reason to talk about a split” or “other stupid babble”.
The Left Party was founded five years ago after the merger of the post-communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) in the east and western former Social Democrats (SPD) disillusioned with the social reforms of Gerhard Schröder.
Under the Gysi-Lafontaine duo, the party performed strongly in polls, tripling the PDS share of the vote to win almost 12 per cent in the last general election in 2009.
Analysts forecast a long-term future, with Mr Lafontaine broadening the party’s appeal and geographical reach by bringing in western voters to replace the declining PDS vote among older former east Germans.
But the party’s successes papered over unresolved east-west divisions.
Eastern Left Party leaders, many with government experience at state level, are considered more pragmatic and open to the idea of entering coalitions with the SPD.
Their western comrades, meanwhile, are considered more ideologically hardline, determined to keep their political and ideological distance from the SPD.
Leading them is Mr Lafontaine, who once served as Mr Schröder’s finance minister until differences prompted him to walk out on the job.
His fiery return as Left Party leader allowed him exact revenge on his former political home and helped the Left Party into the political mainstream.
But election success dissipated once more when Mr Lafontaine left two years ago for cancer treatment.
Support dropped to just 8 per cent under his less compelling successors. Their failure to capitalise on the euro zone crisis prompted a slump in support and a revival of party in-fighting.
Last month Mr Lafontaine offered to return as leader, but only if he could run unopposed, a move that annoyed everyone except his most loyal supporters.
Instead of risking defeat, Mr Lafontaine sent a little-known Swabian businessman and ally, Bernd Riexinger, into the fray.
He was elected at the party conference alongside Katja Kipping, a young eastern Bundestag MP from Dresden.
“Please let us overcome these bloody east-west divisions,” Ms Kipping said to delegates.
It remains to be seen if the two largely untested figures have the talent or authority to unite a party that is haemorrhaging support — to the SPD and the new Pirate Party.
In the recent state election in North Rhine-Westphalia the local Left Party, known for its Stalinist tendencies, failed to return to parliament.