THE LAST two days have seen legal decisions that have cleared the way
for the clearly anti-neoliberal Berlin WASG (Election Alternative for
Work and Social Justice) to stand in the city’s 17 September regional
election.
Robert Bechert, CWI, Berlin
On 31 May a court overthrew the WASG national executive’s decision to
remove from office the Berlin WASG regional executive (see the socialist
issue 440 ‘Germany: WASG rebels suspended’).
The court declared that this step could only be taken by a WASG
national congress and restored the regional executive to office. The
next WASG national congress is currently scheduled for November.
This decision meant that the attempt by the national WASG leadership
to stop the Berlin WASG standing independently was doomed to failure.
The national executive had replaced the regional leadership with a
plenipotentiary who tried to withdraw the Berlin WASG’s application to
stand in the elections.
The city’s election committee met on 1 June to review all the
applications to stand. Already it was clear that it was likely that the
Berlin WASG’s application would be upheld, but the previous day’s
reinstatement of the Berlin executive made this almost a formality.
The national WASG leaders are saying that they will appeal to a
higher court to secure the removal of the Berlin executive. However it
seems unlikely that they will be able to prevent a Berlin WASG list of
candidates standing in September.
As previously reported the national WASG leadership, in the name of
‘left unity’, want the Berlin WASG to support and stand on the list of
the Leftparty.PDS (L.PDS). But in Berlin the L.PDS has been running
Berlin in a coalition with the SPD since 2001. This coalition has
implemented job cuts, wage reductions, privatisation and social cuts.
One result is that the L.PDS is currently at 15% in the city’s opinion
polls compared with the 22.6% they won in 2001.
The national WASG leaders say that the Berlin L.PDS has changed. In
their statement on their court defeat they attack court interference in
the life of the party and criticise the Berlin WASG for not considering
the Berlin L.PDS’s "clarifications" in a recent joint document with the
national WASG "on critical points such as privatisation of public
property or the acknowledgement of collective agreements".
It is of course regrettable that the issue came down to legal cases,
but how else concretely could it be ensured that left wing
anti-neo-liberal candidates were allowed to stand in the Berlin
election?
Misleading
The national WASG leaders are being misleading when they talk about
the Berlin L.PDS changing its policies. One example out of many is that
the L.PDS now says it is against compulsory redundancies, but it still
supports the plan to cut 18,000 Berlin city jobs by 2012.
The fact now that the Berlin WASG is able to stand is a big step
forward.
It could be a difficult struggle. The national WASG leaders around
Oskar Lafontaine will join forces with the L.PDS to loudly bang the
‘Left unity’ drum, hoping that the noise will drown out criticism of the
Berlin L.PDS’s policies. But a serious campaign by the Berlin WASG could
not only achieve a significant vote but, more importantly, build the
forces that will continue to fight neo-liberal cuts after the election.
The latest opinion polls put the Berlin WASG at 5%, which would be
enough to get elected to the Berlin regional parliament.
