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maandag, oktober 10, 2005

Grand Coalition accelerates SPD's demise

So the SPD has traded the Chancellorship for eight cabinet portfolios and a moderation to the CDU's plans for labour market reforms. Even accepting the new Linkspartei's (correct) rejection of joining a neo-liberal coalition with the SPD and Greens, Schroeder's hara-kiri, as I pointed out before, was unnecessary.

That the SPD would rather eat their own and join with the CDU when the left actually won the election, than contemplate entering into a coalition with a party whose programme is little different from that of the pre-Neue-Mittel SPD, shows how strategically and ideologically bankrupt the party is.

Well, it's their funeral. The Grand Coalition will further alienate SPD supporters, introduce reforms extending economic dislocation in the country and thus expand the audience for the Linkspartei's ideas. Far from saving the SPD, the Grand Coalition accelerates the party's demise.

By the way, the Linkspartei scored a handsome 19.23 per cent in the Dresden election, pushing the Free Democrats and Greens into a distant fourth and fifth place.