For Germany's Former Communists, a Stunning Resurgence

BERLIN -- Nineteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the old East German Communist Party is making a comeback.

Known these days simply as the Left, the ex-communists have broadened their appeal by playing to Germans' anxieties about globalization, wealth distribution and welfare cuts. After scraping along for years, the Left now draws the support of one in seven Germans, some polls show -- making it the third most popular party in the country and a potential kingmaker in next year's federal election.

The Left's rebound has stunned Germany's mainstream political parties, which had written off the ex-communists as a relic of the Cold War and long treated them as untouchable extremists. Instead, the Left has upended Germany's once stable political system, increasing the odds that it could come to power in a coalition government.

"After reunification, many pollsters predicted they would fade away," said Manfred Guellner, head of the Forsa research institute, a leading German pollster. "I've never been more uncertain about the future of German politics and the parties than I am now."

Most supporters of the Left live in economically struggling eastern Germany, where nostalgia remains strong for the years of communist rule. In the past several weeks, however, the party has won seats for the first time in regional parliaments in the western states of Hesse and Lower Saxony, as well as the city of Hamburg.

Its unexpected strength has led to gridlock in Hesse -- home of the nation's business capital, Frankfurt -- because no other political party has been able to scrape together a majority coalition without the resurgent Left. It's a scenario that analysts said could be repeated in September 2009, when national elections are likely to be held and Chancellor Angela Merkel's job will be up for grabs.

For now, the mood is giddy in the Left's party headquarters in eastern Berlin, located in the same building that housed the German Communist Party until 1933, when the Nazis came to power.

After years of ridicule, the Left's leaders are being taken seriously as a political force. But even they aren't sure how far they can go or whether their current success is a flash in the pan.

"The ultimate outcome is still a question mark," acknowledged Dietmar Bartsch, the Left party's general secretary and a member of Parliament. "We've had very strong success in the most recent elections. But the question is how long that will continue."

Since 2005, Germany has been ruled by what people here call a "grand coalition," a partnering of the two biggest parties: the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats. The arrangement was forced after the Left scored 9 percent of the vote and made it impossible for either of the big parties to form their usual ruling partnerships.

The coalition has proved unwieldy, forcing both sides to water down their agendas as they struggle to share power. The prime beneficiary has been the Left, which has stepped into the void as the country's leading opposition group. "The grand coalition has been a good thing for our party's development," Bartsch said.

The biggest loser has been the Social Democrats, whose approval ratings have plummeted. The party has historically drawn its strength from labor unions and other groups supportive of a welfare state. But defections to the Left have accelerated since Gerhard Schroeder, the last Social Democratic chancellor, approved a series of cuts in jobless and pension benefits starting in 2003.