Global News Journal

Fringe parties abound but have little chance in German election

Strangers to electoral office and with little experience in government, 23 parties outside the political mainstream are aiming to gain ground in Germany’s federal election this month, and their success or failure may give a taste of what’s to come in a country whose two main parties are losing appeal. Some analysts say that without reform, the number and importance of smaller parties will rise and make the country’s coalition system of government unmanageable – a harrowing reminder of the chaos of the Weimar years that made Hitler’s rise possible. At the moment the small parties are polling at around 5 percent, compared to the last election when they won 4 percent. But none alone is even close to clearing the 5 percent hurdle to access parliament.

Most of the micro-parties are based on single issues, some focusing on things like pensioners rights or animal protection. A smattering of religious parties are calling for stronger Christian values, and far-left groups urge different visions of proletarian revolution and state economic control. The computer-geek founded Pirate Party, which is also the fastest growing party in Germany, wants to legalise free downloads.

While the strongest of the obscure – the far-right German People’s Union (DVU) and the German National Party (NPD) already have a handful of representatives in state-level government, the others do not. None of them of course stand a chance against bigger rivals like the centre-right CDU/CSU, the free-marketeering FDP, the centre left SPD, or even the environmental Greens or far-left Left Party. But some are attracting younger voters, including those born after the fall of the Berlin Wall who increasingly reject the mainstream parties.

For a look at 23 German political parties (including the main ones), check out the Vote-O-Mat (aka “Wahl-O-Mat” in German). Answer a series of questions (in English) and a tool will produce a recommended voting list based on your responses.

Germany’s ‘Pirate Party’ hopes for election surprise

Founded by computer geeks in Sweden in 2006 and now active in 33 countries, the Pirate Party is hoping to win over young, disaffected voters in Germany’s federal election on Sept. 27 with demands to reform copyright and patent laws along with their policies that oppose internet censorship and surveillance. But do the single-issue activists, with no stance on foreign policy or the economy, even have the faintest hope of overcoming the five percent hurdle needed to enter parliament?

This looks unlikely given the 0.9 percent of the vote they won at the European parliamentary elections in June.  Nonethless, the Piratenpartei with more than 8,000 members is the fastest growing party in Germany, a development partly sparked by the German parliament’s ratification of controversial legislation on blocking certain websites in a bid to fight child pornography.

Gero Neugebauer, political scientist at Berlin’s Free University, said the traditional parties’ failure to properly understand the internet may have put wind in the Pirates’ sails. “The large parties have treated the issue as if the only people using the internet are old men with lewd ideas who want to look at pornographic images or practice paedophilia,” Neugebauer said in a recent TV interview.  ”If the Pirate Party manages to make clear in society the conflict which they presently represent … then they definitely have the potential to get above the five percent hurdle,” he added.

Among the ranks of the Pirate Party is a former Social Democrat member of parliament — Joerg Tauss. He resigned under pressure in September amid an investigation into possession of child pornography by state prosectors. He denies any wrongdoing.  “The internet has been increasingly tightened in recent years and made into a civil rights-free zone,” Tauss said in parliament when the legislation was passed. 

Alongside traditional campaigning methods, the Pirate Party has taken to the streets setting up model living rooms inside transparent containers in public squares to protest against what they see as an increasingly Orwellian police state.  Support could come from younger voters, who have grown up with the internet, and who feel that established political parties are out of touch with their concerns.

“I want to be able to exchange music on the internet with my friends for free,” Florain Bischof, Pirate Party candidate for Berlin says on student networking site studiVZ. One of the party’s main policies is an easing of copyright laws.

Germany’s mainstream polling institutes do not include the Pirates as a separate party in their survey and it is not clear how popular the party would be among the population at large. So the question remains: how successful has the party been in shedding its image as a bunch of male software engineers getting stroppy about their surfing rights? And in Germany’s greying population, with voters 60 and over making up 30 percent of the rapidly ageing electorate, is a campaign targeted at gamers and those who download music doomed to fall flat?

Expenses: They order this matter differently in Sweden

A scandal about expenses claimed by British members of parliament has damaged the already low standing of British politicians and helped Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party to its worst opinion poll showing since polling began.

The MPs argue that what they are doing is within the rules – correct, but missing the point that it is out of line with public sentiment especially at a time of national belt-tightening.

While some of the claims run into thousands of pounds for mortgage interest or home decoration, others are for trivial sums for items like dogfood or, bizarrely, a tampon claimed by a male MP. Hardly the stuff of kleptocracy.

But in some countries elected officials face savage retribution if their expense claims do not meet public standards.

Take Sweden. A prosperous, egalitarian country ranked joint 1st (with Denmark and New Zealand) out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s annual survey of corruption. Under constitutionally protected freedom of information rules, even everyone’s tax returns are in the public domain.

Elected in 1982 to Sweden’s parliament for the Social Democrats as the country’s youngest MP, Mona Sahlin rose quickly through the ministerial ranks. When in 1995 Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson announced his intention to resign, she was the sole candidate to replace him.

Is the balance shifting in Zimbabwe?

This week’s reopening of Zimbabwe’s parliament had been seen by many as a show of defiance by President Robert Mugabe against an opposition that has so far rejected terms of a power-sharing deal that appear more acceptable to the veteran leader and to at least some of his regional counterparts.

But it may not have gone quite to plan.

The election of the parliamentary speaker chosen by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) came in spite of efforts by Mugabe’s ZANU-PF to bring in the candidate of the breakaway MDC faction. Members of that faction appear to have sided with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai rather than their own party leadership.

Then Mugabe faced unprecedented boos and jeers as he delivered his speech at the reopening of parliament, where ZANU-PF has lost its majority for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980. Mugabe nonetheless said he was optimistic that a power-sharing deal would be reached.

Is there a shift in the balance of power in Zimbabwe? What might it all mean for talks and for chances of an agreement that could help to revive the stricken country?