BBC
New German Left gains momentum
Simply called "Die Linke" (The Left), the new alliance has surged to 12% support in opinion polls - and blown the election wide open. The sun is shining and the atmosphere is relaxed as Lothar Bisky, leader of the reformed communist party, the PDS, tells the crowd that "East Germany will have a voice again" after the election expected in September. "We will re-enter parliament and the East will make itself heard again: what's going wrong here, and what our proposals are for putting it right," he says, to a ripple of applause. Mr Bisky can afford to be confident. His party recently made an agreement to form a new left-wing alliance with a motley grouping of disaffected trade unionists and former Social Democrats (SPD) in the west of Germany. The secret of its success is another man: Oskar Lafontaine. Once the leader of the SPD, he resigned as finance minister in 1999 and spent years in the wilderness - but has now returned to politics. "Many people take this as a sign that there's a change in Germany, and the people hope that we combine the power of the Leftists, and people like this. They want it," says Mr Bisky. "So we are going through a good time. We come together with Lafontaine and for the first time the leftists in east and west come together."
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