After three rounds of voting, Left Party leader Lothar Bisky failed to get enough votes to be elected as one of the six deputy speakers. As a member party in the Bundestag the Left Party is entitled to be represented in the presidium. So the vote should have been more or less a formality. The Guardian sees this as a result of Bisky’s alleged work for the infamous East German Stasi organization:
The move follows claims that Bisky, 64, worked as an informal collaborator for East Germany’s secret police, the Stasi. According to yesterday’s Berliner Zeitung, Bisky’s name crops up twice in the "Rosenholz" files rescued from the Stasi archives by a CIA agent after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bisky denies the claims.
He admitted writing reports on his West German trips but says he has no idea what happened to them. Last month Marianne Birthler, the head of the Stasi archive, said several MPs in the Left party had collaborated with the Stasi. Yesterday Left party officials accused Germany’s mainstream parties of a conspiracy, and said the claims against Bisky were fabricated. "We are not going to allow others to dictate who our candidate should be," said Hendrik Thalheim, the party’s press spokesman.
But the Stasi files have been open since 1990; there are no new revelations about Bisky. The vote has more to do with the residual hostility from the SPD towards Oskar Lafontaine, and sour grapes from factions within the CDU and FDP that the success of the Left Party sank their plans for a Black-Yellow governing coalition in Berlin.
Richard Meng has some good commentary in the Frankfurter Rundschau:
Die unfeine Art und Weise, wie rund die Hälfte der Abgeordneten ohne vorherige Ansage dreimal die Wahl Lothar Biskys zum Parlamentsvize verweigerten, hat den alten PDS-Leuten nur erst recht das Gefühl gegeben, die einzig wahren Vertreter der Entrechteten zu sein. Und der Umstand, dass offenbar mindestens die halbe Unionsfraktion und Teile des rechten SPD-Flügels so ihr Mütchen kühlten, lässt nichts Gutes für den künftigen Umgang mit diesem Teil der Opposition erwarten.Man muss die Linkspartei-Fraktion nicht mögen, aber sie ist gewählt. Mit gleicher Legitimation wie alle anderen.
Christian Semmler also comes to Bisky’s defense in today’s taz:
Dieser Politiker hat seit 1990 Dialogbereitschaft, Einsicht in den diktatorischen Charakter des SED-Regimes und konstruktive Angebote zur politischen Arbeit bewiesen, die man bei altbundesrepublikanischen Politikern selten findet. Daher auch seine Beliebtheit im deutschen Osten – und nicht nur da.
Good coverage as well in the Linkszeitung. This type of dirty play by resentful politicians in the mainstream party will only intensify the alienation and disenfranchisement of voters in eastern Germany.
