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01/27/2010

Oskar Lafontaine surprised a lot of Germans when he announced his retirement over the weekend. The firebrand chairman of the opposition Left Party managed to overtake the Greens only two years after co-founding the Left Party in 2007. Before that he had a long and contentious career as a Social Democrat. "I am a political person," Lafontaine, 66, said at a Saturday press conference, "and this decision was not easy for me to make."

He plans to step down as chairman -- and give up his parliamentary seat -- because he has prostate cancer. The January 23 announcement left a vacuum at the summit of the Left Party. On Tuesday the party announced a new cadre of party chiefs: Two relatively unknown members, Klaus Ernst and Gesine Lötzsch -- a man and a woman, from western and eastern Germany, respectively -- are now in line to take over joint chairmanship when the party holds its annual conference in May.

A western-born former speech writer for the Green Party, Caren Lay, has been nominated as a leader for the Left Party's eastern regional association; a labor leader named Werner Dreibus has been put forward as her western counterpart, and an easterner named Sahra Wagenknecht has been named as a possible deputy party chief. These ties to the former east and west are crucial in a party that attracts committed former communists as well as disillusioned, western-born Social Democrats like Lafontaine.

So what now? Lafontaine was the party's weightiest name. Commentators on Wednesday mulled the new leadership coalition and discussed what it all means for German politics in general.

The left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung writes:

"The Left Party has ended its leadership crisis at lightning speed. Normally that would be a mark of decisiveness and professional crisis management. In this case it seems born of fear -- a fear that chaos might erupt and splinter the party into antagonistic little groups. We can't risk a power vacuum, the party seems to say -- we need to shore up support among easterners, westerners, pragmatists and the far left. So there's a bonbon here for everyone: Caren Lay for the realists, Klaus Ernst for the western trade unionists, Sahra Wagenknecht for the far left. Whether they'll make a functioning team or just represent a disguised sort of cronyism remains to be seen."

"(Former party leader Gregor) Gysi gave a recent, accurate description of the party's weakness. It lacks a stable center. The current tableau of personalities is an attempt to stake one out."

The left-wing Berliner Zeitung writes:

"If it's bold to be decisive about your own gutlessness, if it's optimistic to see the past as future, if it's natural to greet the twilight as a rosy dawn -- then the Left Party yesterday arrived at a bold, optimistic, and utterly natural decision … It is certainly a compromise, but remember what Goethe said about compromises: 'Turning a conflict into a healthy compromise leads to chronic disease.'"

"Lafontaine's departure has not created the Left Party's problems, but it has certainly made them visible. These long-smoldering political and cultural conflicts will be embodied rather than transcended by Lötsch and Ernst. Young members of the party have lacked confidence, so the older members have yoked themselves together like so many horses -- a so-called 'healthy compromise.'"

The Financial Times Deutschland writes:

"(The new leadership) is not a summit of party power so much as two little horns. The twinned strategy is meant to appease, not truly lead. It won't find answers to the most important questions facing the Left Party -- whether to work with Merkel's government or systematically oppose it, how (or how much) to join forces with Social Democrats, how to vote on German military missions or balancing the national budget. It will not unify but split the party in two."

"The new leadership does offer an opportunity -- for Social Democrats. Given this weak leadership they won't have much to fear from their left-hand flank. It seems unlikely that Ernst or Lötzsch can win any voters away from them now, which means the Social Democrats, as an opposition party, can sharpen its arguments against Merkel's government."

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"(Ernst and Lötzsch) inherit a legacy that looks rather like a house that's been erected too hastily ... The political stars who first headed the party -- Lafontaine and Gysi -- were responsible for winning over an impressive portion of the electorate. But they neglected the need to unite the party."

"The new double leadership will make another attempt at unity. It belongs to a desperate attempt to please everyone. But it may not succeed, and the grumbling has already begun. Now it appears Bertolt Brecht's old warning also applies to the Left Party: 'Go make yourself a plan. And be a shining light. Then make yourself a second plan. For neither will come right.'"

The conservative daily Die Welt argues:

"Three of the new people at the top aren't cut from the same cloth as the typical western German leftists who will express their radical opposition to just about anything. (Werner) Dreibus is a member of the federal parliament and is on a corporate supervisory board. Caren Lay ... has also been a member of the Saxony state parliament in the east and has also gained experience in a federal ministry. The new national treasurer, Raju Sharma, may have been connected to the German Communist Party in the past, but he also served a leadership role in the social ministry in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein. And co-chair Gesine Lötzsch may have been a member of the SED, the East German communist party, but today she is considered sensible and measured."

"Social Democrats will find little reason to celebrate this quintet. … The Left Party will further cement its identity as an alternative to them. Indeed, it will be harder for Social Democrat chairman Sigmar Gabriel to find as many people prepared to bolt the Left Party as he may have thought. He should focus on drawing voters in the center away from Merkel's conservatives. But going up against both Merkel and the current sentiment among Social Democrats will be a tough go."