The party's In the past, The Left was under observation by all western German states; in January 2008, Saarland became the first to cease observation.Surveillance of party members has been a point of controversy.

By the time of a special party conference on 16 December 1989, it was obvious that the SED was no longer a Marxist-Leninist party.

A German insurance firm has admitted rewarding its 100 best salesmen with a prostitute-filled "sex party" in Budapest's most famous thermal baths. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.In the mid-1980s the party was torn by internal dissension between the realists (Some Greens viewed the victory as a long-awaited opportunity to transform the party’s principles into public policy. This was not enough to save the party when it faced the voters for the first time in the In January 2005, a group of disaffected SPD members and trade unionists founded WASG continued to gain members, prompting the PDS leadership to propose an alliance between the two parties. Upon its formation, The Left had 71,000 members, of which 11,500 had been WASG members. Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing.

The electoral collapse of the Social Democratic Party in the The Left won seats in the parliament of Germany's most populous state, In January 2010, Oskar Lafontaine announced that, due to his ongoing cancer treatment, he would not seek re-election to the party leadership at the upcoming party congress. With the established eastern base of the PDS and WASG's potential for growth in the west, the parties hoped to enter the Bundestag together. "The Left's position as the successor of the PDS and SED has made it subject to significant controversy and criticism, as well as claims that the party is sympathetic to the former GDR.Minor parties (without representation above district level) Please enter a valid postal code. During the second session the party accepted a proposal from Gysi, who had become party chairman earlier in the month, that the party adopt a new name, "Party of Democratic Socialism." This amount is subject to change until you make payment.

Alarmed by the Left's unexpected rise in the polls, Germany's mainstream politicians attacked Lafontaine and Gysi as "leftist populists" and "demagogues" and accused the party of flirting with neo-Nazi voters. ), also commonly referred to as the Left Party (German: die Linkspartei, pronounced [diː ˈlɪŋkspaʁˌtaɪ̯] ()), is a democratic socialist political party in Germany.The party was founded in 2007 as the result of the merger of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative (WASG). With strong environmental protection endorsed by all the major parties, the Greens found themselves in search of new issues and a more modern image.In 2008 many greeted with optimism the election of Although the Green Party’s percentage of the vote fell to about 8 percent in the 2013 federal parliamentary elections, it faced the possibility of being asked to join in coalition rule with the election-winning CDU-CSU alliance, whose former coalition partner, the Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing.

It brought together two major left wing political organizations, the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party of Germany .In 1981 SED membership totaled 2,172,110. Professor of Political Science, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina.

As of 31 December 2018, the membership of the branches is as follows:In addition to the recognised platforms, a number of smaller groups have aligned with The Left and its predecessors, such as Marx21. The fact that some of the Left's members were once part of the Socialist Unity Party (SED), which ran the East German dictatorship, still puts many German voters off - especially older ones. She elaborated: "Left-wing populism means targeting those who are marginalized in our society in a targeted and pointed manner. Gysi felt a name change was necessary to distance the reformed party from its repressive past.