On 22nd May, the SPD suffered a humiliating defeat in the (former) social-democratic heartland of Nordrhein-Westphalen. It lost 5.7 per cent and is now down to 37, 1 per cent. The CDU conservatives on the other hand won with 44.8 per cent – an increase of 5.7 per cent.
After a 39 years in office the SPD has been kicked out of the government in the largest federal state, where almost a quarter of the German population lives. This disaster was only the last in a series of electoral defeats Gerhard Schröder has suffered since he won the 2002 elections on an anti-war ticket. Since then his total espousal of the neoliberal agenda of cutting down the welfare state whilst the German bosses went on the offensive and the economy stagnated demoralised and disillusioned the SPD´voting base in the working class.
However, this electoral disaster proved far worse than any of the previous ones. This was because it devastated the SPD´s national stronghold and because many workers did not simply stay at home, but actually voted for the conservative party, the CDU. All in all the CDU gained a million votes. It also increased its share amongst the blue-collar workers and unemployed, albeit it still lagged behind the SPD in the large, working class cities (45% for SPD and 36% for CDU).
This defeat has led Schröder and SPD party leader Müntefering to perform an unusual manoeuvre. Only an hour after the first exit polls came in, when the SPD-defeat became clear, Müntefering announced new elections for September. By this drastic manoeuvre, the SPD has tried to seize the initiative from their critics within the party. The huge electoral setback would have made it difficult if not impossible to stagger on in government for another year and, at the same time, stop the party from descending into internal feuding over who was to blame and who could possibly lead the party, if not to victory then to a less serious defeat in the general election.
Early elections are aimed quite cynically to force the party to close ranks behind Schröder and turn the poll into a referendum on Agenda 2010 and Hartz IV – the anti-working class programme that led to the series of electoral disasters in the first place.
The cowardly trade union leaders, many of whom have been bitterly criticising Schröder’s policies immediately fell for his blackmail and rushed to signal their support for him.
The CDU and the German bourgeoisie are pressing for an equally or even more vicious agenda. But most importantly, the ruling class wants a strong government to press ahead with a “popular mandate” to rob the population of much their social welfare and pension system.
It is clear that in such a situation, revolutionaries must not give any support to the SPD. They must use the election campaign to mobilise for the struggle against the existing and the incoming government, to build a political alternative, a new working class party to politically unify and to give political direction to the heterogeneous opposition to agenda 2010 in the workplaces, amongst the unemployed, the youth, the immigrants.
In this critical situation, the non-SPD reformist left registered a mixed result in Nordrhein-Westfalen. The post-Stalinist Party of Democratic Socialism, the PDS, saw its vote stagnate at around 0,9%. The newly formed Electoral Alternative-Wahlalternative (WASG) got 2,2%. Given the mobilisations of the last years and the alienation of the mass of working class people, these results are very modest, but not insignificant. The WASG did particularly well amongst the unemployed (7 percent), but it (and the PDS) failed to make inroads amongst employed workers.
The SPD´s move to announce new elections took the PDS and WASG totally by surprise. Whilst the PDS has a reasonable chance to make it into parliament on its own, i.e. cross the 5% threshold needed to get seats in parliament its ally, the WASG is not in a position to get such a result on its own. Therefore, the WASG-leadership immediately opened negotiations with PDS for a common electoral campaign and even the formation of a new party. This is simulated by the “private man” Oskar Lafontaine well-known former leader of the left wing of the party.
The leaders of the WASG and the PDS can agree on one thing – it is for them, not the rank and file of their parties to decide on the how to run a joint election campaign, what its programme is and what character any new party should be. They want a purely electoral alliance or list, which will allow future MPs freedom to manoeuvre, including giving tacit support to the SPD (in the unlikely case that it should be in position to lead the next government).
In order to prevent such a top down process, we call on the WASG and PDS and their members to demand the calling an open conference to discuss and decide upon the formation, programme and electoral campaign against the general attack of the capitalists, Schröder´s agenda 2010 and CDU-candidate Merkel´s threatened attack on the unions and workers rights. Such a conference should be open not only to delegates from the membership of the two parties. In addition all communist and socialist organisations and parties who want to join in such a struggle must be invited.
In summoning such a conference we must give the fullest encouragement to the participation of— militants from the Monday-demonstrations, from alliances against the Hartz-laws, from social forums, from the workers struggles like Opel Bochum, from the Trade Union Left network, from youth and student organisations, from co-ordinations of immigrants, and from anti-war and anti-imperialist organisations. Such a conference would thus be a real gathering of working class fighters, not just a tame audience for faded SPD stars or the lower ranks of the trade union bureaucracy.
Workers should demand from the unions and their leaders to stop any open or hidden support for the SPD and join the formation of a new fighting party. IG Metall for example has already issued a programme of demands on the government which is nearly identical to that of the Wahlaternative, yet its leaders are doing all thy can to rally their members behind the SPD. Workers should call on the SPD-left to break with Schröder and join in the founding of a new party.
Such an open conference must allow all currents and organisations to freely present their proposals, draft programmes and strategy for an election campaign and for the creation of a real, new mass working class party. It should adopt a clear and unequivocal position of giving no support to any incoming government, which will carry on the attacks on the working class and the measures to strengthen a European imperialist bloc. Last but not least it must demand that the PDS breaks its coalition governments with the SPD in Schwerin and Berlin which are carrying out local versions of the selfsame cuts in the social gains of the working class.
A new party will only be a real step forward, if it is more than an electoral formation, if it is a party of class struggle not a party for electing yet another bourgeois government – a party which will become not only a weapon to rout the present attacks and give lead to a working class counter-offensive, but a party which will fight to overthrow capitalism itself.