BERLIN — Former communists and defectors from Germany’s ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) have joined forces in an attempt to thwart Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s bid for a third term in upcoming general elections.
The alliance, led by two of the country’s best-known political mavericks, former SPD Chairman Oskar Lafontaine and ex-communist Gregor Gysi, wants to reverse Mr. Schroeder’s unpopular welfare cuts and boost state spending to tackle unemployment that has dogged Germany for more than a decade.
“Schroeder’s political career is over,” Mr. Lafontaine, who helped Mr. Schroeder gain power in 1998 but suddenly resigned as finance minister and SPD chairman in 1999, told Stern magazine. “He’s facing a pile of rubble.”
Mr. Gysi is former leader of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor organization to the former East Germany’s Communist Party, which built the Berlin Wall.
Wichard Woyke, political scientist at University of Muenster, said the alliance is unlikely to survive for long.
“The question is whether they can last or whether we haven’t just got two egomaniacs here who want to realize their political dreams late in life,” Mr. Woyke said.
“They both like to be in the public eye, but neither of them is known for weathering tough politics,” he said.
Mr. Gysi, 57, who has had health problems, resigned as head of the PDS in 2000, then quit as PDS parliamentary leader and subsequently resigned as economics minister in the Berlin city government.
Polls show support for the alliance stands at 11 percent, according to a Forsa institute opinion poll released Wednesday, enough to lend weight to its claim to become the third-strongest force in German politics. General elections are expected in September.
The SPD, hit by a series of state election routs over its welfare reforms, lags the opposition conservatives by 20 points in opinion polls, prompting even Social Democrats to acknowledge privately that a victory would be a miracle.
Mr. Lafontaine, 61, a passionate left-winger and strong public speaker, has staged a political comeback by attacking Mr. Schroeder’s welfare reforms.
Mr. Schroeder, who declared during the 1998 election that he was so close to Mr. Lafontaine “that you couldn’t fit a piece of paper between us,” has refused to utter his name in public for years.
The SPD, alarmed at the emergence of a strong challenger on its left, has responded with plans for a special tax on the wealthy. It also has refrained recently from mentioning the need for more painful reforms.
Mr. Schroeder decided to seek an early election this fall, one year sooner than scheduled, after the SPD lost power in its stronghold of North Rhine-Westphalia in a May election.
He aims to call a vote of confidence as early as today in a bid to dissolve parliament and hold an early election.
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