SPD U-turn over coalition with Left undermines leader

GERMANY: A TOP German Social Democrat (SPD) has abandoned plans to use votes from a left-wing party to take power in the state of Hesse, an embarrassing about-face which will heap pressure on national SPD chairman Kurt Beck.

The state SPD leader, Andrea Ypsilanti, said earlier this week she would try to form a minority government in Hesse using votes from the Left party, going back on a pledge not to work with the grouping of ex-communists and left-wing radicals.

The move, which came after a deadlocked election in Hesse in January, sparked an internal party rebellion, with at least one member of Ypsilanti's own party saying they would not back her in an April 5th vote to make her premier of the state.

"We cannot go down this path," Ms Ypsilanti told a televised news conference yesterday. "I will not stand for election on April 5th because I cannot guarantee I will get a majority."

Mr Beck, the presumed challenger to chancellor Angela Merkel in next year's federal election, gave Ms Ypsilanti the green light to pursue loose co-operation with the Left party despite the fact that many in his party view them as unreliable and populist.

Already tumbling in popularity polls because of this shift, Mr Beck may now face pressure to step aside and let someone else, perhaps foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, take on the popular Merkel in 2009.

Mr Beck (59) has been sick with flu for the past week and remained silent as leading members of his own party, including finance minister Peer Steinbrück, criticised his decision to use Left party votes in Hesse.

The Left was formed last year through a merger of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor to East Germany's communists, and the WASG, a party founded by Oskar Lafontaine, a former German finance minister who left the SPD in protest at then chancellor Gerhard Schröder's labour market reforms.

The Left is now the strongest party in Germany's former communist east and has made surprising inroads in the west this year, entering three state parliaments - in Hamburg, Hesse and Lower Saxony - in the span of a month.

But it has also shown an erratic side. Last month it had to dismiss a deputy for praising East Germany's Stasi secret police and the Berlin Wall.

A poll released yesterday showed that only 32 per cent of Germans have a favourable view of Mr Beck, down seven percentage points from a month ago. The same poll showed that 62 per cent of Germans would back Ms Merkel in a hypothetical vote for chancellor compared with 20 per cent for Mr Beck.

Meanwhile, German public sector wage talks between the government and the Verdi service sector union broke down without agreement yesterday and are headed to arbitration. -

© 2008 Reuters

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times