Sixteen years after the fall of the Berlin wall, Ellen Müller looks back with nostalgia at her life in the then communist East Germany. ... a surge of support for Germany's newest political party, the Linkspartei or Left party ... could ... determine Germany's general election in a fortnight. "All the other parties are interested in strengthening capitalism," says Mrs Müller. "We reject it." The party is the result of a merger earlier this year between east Germany's former Communist party and the Work and Social Justice party, a new group founded by disaffected activists from Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats. After a euphoric start, the Left party ... is expected to capture up to 30% of the vote. If the party does well enough, it could prevent Angela Merkel's conservatives from forming a centre-right government with the FDP, her coalition partner. ... Germany's mainstream political parties have all heaped abuse on the Linkspartei, and in particular, the party's populist star candidate, Oskar Lafontaine. A former chairman of the social democratic party, the SPD, and finance minister, Mr Lafontaine was instrumental in bringing the Social Democrats back into power after 16 years in the wilderness during the Kohl era. But he resigned from Mr Schröder's first government in 1999 in protest at the chancellor's business-friendly policies. He has been a bitter critic ever since. This summer he quit the SPD and announced he was joining the Left party, prompting claims of treachery. The party's other star candidate is Gregor Gysi, a sharp east German lawyer and the leader of the PDS, the former Communist party. ... the Linkspartei's solutions for getting Germany out of its mess include big tax increases, among them a new 50% tax rate on earnings over €60,000 (£41,000) a year. In return, the party promises a minimum wage of €1,400 a month and generous benefits for pensioners and families.
Now let me get this straight: since the Reagan/Thatcher Revolutions the USA and the UK have had HALF the unemployment as Germany and France and twice the economic growth, and yet the Left Party in Germany wants to emulate Cuba and Venezuela and Zimbabwe - and have the government get even MORE involved in the economy (instead of reducing the size of geovernment and cutting taxes). If they do raise taxes and make the job market less free, they'll get what they deserve: a one-way ticket on the road to serfdom.
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