The Left's demands were the latest illustration of the paralysis and fragmentation currently reshaping German politics.
LOLOLOL... this spin gets old.
Some context: after Reunification, the CDU managed to build a power base in Saxony that paralleled the strangehold of their sister party CSU on Bavaria. First PM Kurt Biedenkopf governed royally and, eh, with rather close 'cooperation' with former friends in the economy. After too many scandals, he was forced to step down and make way for Milbradt, who had to coalition with the SPD (a dwarf in Saxony) after the next elections.
Milbradt isn't only blamed for the bank crisis, but some affairs similar to his predecessors' - his government and party was plagued by corruption affairs, sex scandals, he himself made stupid remarks after xenophobes hunted a group of Indians across a village, and then it came out that he was personally involved in the bank's murky trade: taking out preferential bank credit for private speculation.
Regarding Merkel who according to the IHT supposedly lost an ally, it was rumoured that she wants to replace Milbradt with her chief of the chancellor's office, Thomas de Maizière (cousin of the last, and first non-'communist', PM of East Germany). Milbradt seems to have pre-empted that option. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Two smaller opposition parties - the pro-business Free Democrats, and the Left - seized on the resignation to demand state elections a year ahead of schedule.
Oh, so the FDP asked for elections, but the leading paragraph only focuses on the demands of the Links? It's onlt the Lefties that create "paralysis and fragmentation", of course, not the brave free-marketeers.
The Left, an amalgam of former East German Communists and disgruntled Social Democrats, has been gaining in both Eastern and Western Germany in recent votes and opinion polls.
Communists or disgruntled! Eew. As you say, it gets old.
"No wonder the Left is calling for new elections. It can play the anti-capitalist and anti-globalization card," said Neugebauer.
Hmmm.... If capitalism and globalisation are so successful, why does that work? In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
I forgot poll numbers; here are the last (one month old), with the September 2004 regional election numbers in parantheses:
CDU: 40% (41.1%) SPD: 16% (9.8%) FDP: 7% (5.9%) Greens: 5% (5.1%) Left Party: 23% (23.6%) NPD (far-right) 4% (9.2%) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
i cast my mind back to when we all were blissfully gruntling, before the Great Unwinding.
disgruntled |disˈgrəntld| adjective angry or dissatisfied : judges receive letters from disgruntled members of the public. DERIVATIVES disgruntlement noun ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from dis- (as an intensifier) + dialect gruntle [utter little grunts,] from grunt .
maybe the Great Golden Age of Grunt was before we invented politicians :)
oink ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
