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In The Populist Corner.(World Affairs; EUROPE)
Byline: Stefan Theil
Germany's elections signal a rise of the left, and a shift from anti-immigrant to economic populism.
It was the battle of the populists. On the right: a firebrand incumbent governor known for his anti-immigrant rhetoric, campaigning against "criminal foreigners" on a law-and-order ticket. On the left: a challenger from the socialist fringe promising goodies for everyone--higher wages, fatter pension checks, bigger unemployment handouts. The contest between Roland Koch, Christian Democratic (CDU) governor of the German state of Hesse, and Social Democratic (SPD) challenger Andrea Ypsilanti, was the most closely watched regional election in years--both for the drama of the campaign itself, and for what it suggests for the future of German politics. The outcome signals a shift in voter sentiment from Koch-style anti-immigrant populism to the left-wing variant, economic populism.
When the results came in on Jan. 27, the SPD had made dramatic gains. Though Koch managed to squeeze ahead of Ypsilanti by a mere 3,000 votes, his share of the vote plummeted from 49 percent in the previous election to just 37 percent. The SPD gained 8 percent over the last election with a candidate who was once considered to be from the left's fringe.
Further evidence of a shift to the left in German politics: last week was also the first time the far-left party Die Linke, successor to the East German communists, won the minimum 5 percent required to enter Parliament in any major western state. Winning a foothold in populous and prosperous Hesse--as well as in Lower Saxony, another big western state that held an election last week--means that the communists have emerged from their status as an eastern regional party and arrived as a national political force.
It's not just the communists who've been successfully rabble-rousing against the evils of the liberal capitalist model--an easy target these days, as capitalism seems to be on the verge of entering one of its periodic crises. The more mainstream SPD has also railed against the free market, gaining popularity as it campaigned against the labor-market and welfare reforms it instituted under its own former chancellor, Gerhard Schroder. At the center of the SPD's new platform is the enormously popular call for a ...
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Source: HighBeam Research, In The Populist Corner.(World Affairs; EUROPE)