Strange bedfellows indeed! Oscar Lafontaine, evidently emboldened by recent polls showing a surge of support for the new Linkspartei, outlines the conditions of a possible coalition government with the Social Democrats and the Greens. Top condition: Schröder and Fischer must go:
HB BERLIN. Lafontaine sagte der „Bild“-Zeitung: „Nur wenn die Sozialdemokraten sich wieder auf ihre Grundsätze besinnen, ist eine Zusammenarbeit möglich.“ Ein Bündnis sei außerdem nur ohne Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder und SPD-Chef Franz Müntefering möglich, die sich bisher strikt gegen eine rot-rot-grüne Koalition gewandt haben. "Die Tage von Schröder sind gezählt, aber in der SPD gibt es viele kleine Schröders“, so Lafontaine weiter.
Schröder of course is incensed and rejects any cooperation with "den zwei Gesellen" (Lafontaine and Gysi). [this recalls Bismarck’s demonizing the Social Democrats 125 years ago as "vaterlandlose Gesellen" – unpatriotic goons. In fact, Schröder’s reaction to his erstwhile comrade Lafontaine and the Linkspartei reminds me of the almost irrational animosity of Bismarck to the socialists: (Edward Crankshaw, Bismarck – p. 359:
The depth of Bismarck’s hatred of Socialism is rarely stressed as it should be. There was a strain of insanity running through it …in fact, it was elemental.]
But there are others in the SPD who are not consumed with irrational hatred and can look at the numbers with a cold eye. Looking at the falling poll numbers for the CDU/FDP (under 50% as of Friday) the SPD representative Sigrid Skarpelis-Sperk said: "Should the Union and the FDP not be able to achieve a majority, then we have to consider a Red-Red-Green coalition."
