Talk:Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative

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==Alliance between the WASG and PDS/Left Party./Whatever

Can someone explain the exact nature of the alliance between the WASG and the Left Party? Is "the Left Party" the new name for the WASG-PDS combo? Or are the WASG and Left Party still separate? And if they are separate, how will their "alliance" work for the national party list vote in September? Won't there need to be one name used nationwide on ballots for the list vote, and if so what will that name be? --Jfruh 20:36, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

In Germany, the national Election is organized by state (Land) and so the ballots are printed and the lists registered. Many small parties only run inparticular states, because they could not achieve the necessary number of supporters nationwide. The CSU (sister party of the major CDU) is principally active only in Bavaria, while the CDU does not exist there. In Bundestag, the deputies of both parties unite to one club (Fraktion). However, to get seats in Bundestag, a party has to gain 5% of the nationwide vote. Inofficial voting alliances are not regarded. So, the two parties "Left Party" and "WASG" have to run under the same name. The PDS wanted the smaller WASG to send its candidates on open lists of PDS, and so the WASG will do, but with a changed name of the PDS. The difficulty is, that parliamentary representation of the WASG depends totally on whether the local Left Party/PDS conventions will really nominate WASG members for good positions. Until now, it is just a wish of the party leaders. -- CFR-Berlin 23:07, 27 July 2005 (MET)

[edit] Name of the Party

I suggest the article be renamed. Deutsche Welle, Germany international broadcaster, uses "Electoral Alternative for Labor and Social Justice" instead of "Labour and Social Justice Party". [1]

I agree with this. It's much closer to the original German. --Duncan 11:13, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

"Electoral Alternative for Labor and Social Justice" is definitely more accurate than "Labour and Social Justice Party". One reason why the party was founded was, that people, mainly workers and unionists, didn't know who to vote anymore, so an electoral alternative was needed. Please do the change. I'm a german reader. --84.159.146.183 03:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links

corrected link to the WASG homepage from www.asg-wahlalternative.de to www.w-asg.de

[edit] Political Ideology

I think there is a mistake in the block at the right side of the article page: WASG is not a socialistic party. There are some socialistic groups being part of the WASG especially some trotzkists like SAV or Linksruck but you will find no hint in WASG program that they tend to socialism or communism. In fact WASG was founded because people didn't want to enter the former PDS. At the present time both parties are discussing whether Democratic Socialism should be mentioned as goal in the program of the planned new left party.

The principles of the WASG could be called social democratic and direct democratic. The foundation program is talking about a solidly united and democratic society. Maybe someone could find a more convenient expression to insert.

I plan to write an updated article on the new party, "Die LINKE.", when its formed in June at the unification congress in Berlin. At that time, I'll make the corrections requested here: including an accurate (I hope) description of the new party's relationship with socialism. The founding documents agreed by the Linkspartei.PDS and WASG don't mention the word, but do refer to "democratic socialists" and "members of" WASG who are creating the new party together. So care will have to be taken with the language.

The new article--I recommend--will borrow both from this article and the existing article on the "Left Party.PDS". I suggest a brief summary of the party followed by separate sections on the history of the PDS and the WASG, an assessment of the party's relative electoral strength in East and West, its basic program, etc.

Question: is their a review process for an article before it's published? Though I'm qualified to write this, and I was one of the primary authors of the original PDS article, I'd be helped by comments and corrections by other informed readers before it's posted.--langohio 21:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)