Berlin : US bases undermine sovereignty, says Lafontaine

By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin

Oskar Lafontaine, one of two lead candidates for the Left party at the German election, has called into question the presence of US military bases in the country, saying they undermine Germany’s sovereignty.

Addressing the congress of the party, an alliance of Social Democratic dissidents and neo-Communists, in Berlin on Saturday, Mr Lafontaine said: "We are not a sovereign country; as long as the US can operate from here, we are a participant in the Iraq war."

The US military presence, he said, "should no longer be taboo" in the political discussion in Germany. The comments, endorsed by Gregor Gysi, the party’s second figurehead in the campaign, could tap into deep German resentment at the US’s aggressive foreign policy.

But they are bound to alienate the west German communities that make their living from the bases and have protested at US plans to cut down its military presence in western Europe.

Mr Lafontaine, a former Social Democratic party chairman and one of Germany’s most charismatic politicians, boosted the chance of the hard left securing parliamentary representation at the September 18 election when he agreed to co-lead the party’s list in June.

Soon after the early election was announced in May, the Party of Democratic Socialism, successor to East Germany’s ruling party, joined forces with the WASG, a group of mainly western trade unionists and defectors from Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s SPD, a move that allowed Mr Lafontaine to join.

The alliance has struggled with controversy in recent days, however, and seen its opinion ratings slide from 12 to below 10 per cent, suggesting it will enter parliament but might do well enough to fulfil earlier predictions that it could rob both centre-left and centre-right of an outright majority.

Some of the controversy concerns Mr Lafontaine’s lifestyle. The politician, branded by German media as a "champagne socialist" and a "lefty deluxe", has come under the spotlight for his opulent villa and for flying from Majorca to an interview last week on a private jet paid by Bild am Sonntag, the tabloid weekly.

Mr Lafontaine responded: "The credibility of a left-winger does not come from the fact that he should have the lowest possible income, but from his courage to take steps that affect him negatively."

Some PDS members have winced at the Left party’s electoral poster, which shows a diminutive Mr Gysi, who represents the PDS on the joint ticket, looking up to a radiant Mr Lafontaine in what could be construed as love-struck awe.

"People talk a lot about the picture," Mr Gysi told the congress at the Estrel Hotel, a leisure complex in the Neukölln district. "Some have asked whether I was making myself too small. Do not worry, we both go into this campaign as equal partners."

More seriously, the differences in political cultures between the PDS, a 60,000-strong party, disciplined and deeply anchored in the east, and the WASG, a loose alliance of 6,000 malcontents, could lead to a split after the election, particularly given its figureheads’ egos.

Nevertheless, the delegates endorsed the alliance’s electoral platform on Saturday, a robustly leftwing programme that rejects both the "neo-liberal" reform policies of Mr Schröder’s government and the proposals of the conservative opposition.

The Left party calls for a net monthly minimum wage of €1,000 ($1,230, £680), minimum pension benefits of €800 a month, and abolition of Mr Schröder’s unpopular Hartz IV labour reform that cut welfare benefits to the long-term unemployed.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d499ef30-1...