New Power to Former Communists

Berlin’s Social Democrats agreed on Thursday to form a city government with the post-communist PDS, joining forces with the party whose predecessors built the Berlin Wall.

Two months after the state election, Social Democrat mayor Klaus Wowereit said his party had decided to form a coalition with the Party of Democratic Socialism, successor to the SED party that ruled East Germany.

The Social Democrats, who before the election had refused to rule out doing a deal with the ex-communists, won the October 21 poll but without an overall majority.

Eight days after the vote, Berlin party officials announced that the city's Mayor, Klaus Wowereit, would enter talks with the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats, leaving the PDS out in the cold.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was said to have been unhappy at the prospect of his party sharing power with the PDS. Not only have the PDS never apologised for building the Berlin Wall, they are also opposed to the military campaign in Afghanistan.

However, the PDS‘s objections to US military action in Afghanistan proved not to be a vote-loser as expected, but seemed to have bolstered its position in the party‘s traditional stronghold in the east.

The ex-communists polled almost 23% - their strongest showing since reunification - while support for the right-wing Christian Democrats dropped sharply from 40% to under 24% - their worst defeat since 1948.

Although the three-way alliance with the Free Democrats and the Greens - known in Germany as the traffic light coalition – would have left the Social Democrats with a majority of only three – Wowereit chose to debate with them first. But without success.

Squabbles soon surfaced as the pro-environmental Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats tried to put forth their rival agendas on issues such as transport. And dispute arose on Berlin notorious handicap – its financial problems.

Mayor Wowereit said the government would have to take painful decisions to restore Berlin’s financial disaster. "We are in an absolutely catastrophic situation," he said.

Germany’s capital has run up debts of $36.75 billion, or around 40 billion Euros – the result of an economic slump, political mismanagement, and cuts in federal subsidies following unification in 1990. The latest addition to its debt pile was the cost of bailing out a bank which partly belongs to the council.

The two parties have agreed to reduce the city's workforce by 15,000 people - but without forced redundancies, cutting staff costs by a billion Euros ($ 0.9 billion) to around 6.5 billion Euros ($ 5.86 billion) by 2006.

Status struggles

Hopes that the fall of the Wall would lead to a boom in Berlin, have not materialised. The city is attracting more industries, but on the other hand, an increasing number of Berliners are leaving the city for the surrounding countryside, reducing the city administration’s available revenue.

And Berlin is still not the aspired 'capital of Europe'. Hopes are high especially in eastern Berlin that the PDS‘ charismatic leader, Gregor Gysi will take on the role as the city's "saviour".

Gysi said that if the government proved successful, it could lead to "acceptance of the PDS as a sort of normality."

At current the PDS is still a sore subject in national politics – especially in foreign politics. Senior SPD leaders have ruled out forming a national government with the former communists, the only German mainstream party to have opposed the US-led campaign against terrorism in Afghanistan.