"Radical" Left Party makes big gains in Germany

from the New York Times:



....(snip)....

This allowed the Left Party, which consists of disgruntled trade unionists from western Germany and Communists from former East Germany, to make big gains by exploiting voter indifference and appealing to protest voters.

The Social Democrats, led by the foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, which lost heavily to the radical Left Party in Saarland and made no gains in Thuringia or Saxony, said Monday they would consider all options. These include establishing left-wing coalitions in Saarland and Thuringia with the support of the Greens.

But even that possibility is in question because of intense rivalry in Thuringia between the Social Democrats and the radical Left Party to make such a coalition workable.

The two major parties, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, have dominated German politics since 1945, and until recently they were able to win enough votes to establish governments themselves or to form coalitions with their preferred political partners. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/world/europe/01germany.html?_r=1&hpw

still Germany is more modern than the USA. We are still in the victorian era!

"disgruntled" "exploited" ???

Could one invent a better example of how the Times derides any left of center politics?

n/t

But this is a good example too.