Die PARTEI

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Die PARTEI (English: the [political] party) is a populist political party in Germany founded in 2004 by editors of the German satirical magazine Titanic. Leader of the Party is Martin Sonneborn.

1 The name
2 Goals
3 Die PARTEI and Titanic magazine
4 Campaign 2005
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] The name

"PARTEI" stands as an acronym for Partei für Arbeit, Rechtsstaat, Tierschutz, Elitenförderung und basisdemokratische Initiative (translated into English: Party for Work, Rule-of-Law, Protection of Animals, Advancement of Elites, and Basic Democratic Initiative.) The term "die Partei" (Partei=party preceded by a definite article) was in the German Democratic Republic synonymous with the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and in Nazi Germany with the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP or Nazi Party) and is thereby a tongue-in-cheek reference to the totalitarian ambitions of the founders of "Die PARTEI".

[edit] Goals

The party refers to itself as a harbor for voters who have been disappointed with other parties. It plans to engage in a (self-declared) "populist campaign."

rebuilding the Berlin Wall.
reform of the health insurance system
protection of natural resources
a reduction in working hours and the scrapping of the Hartz IV and other laws introduced by "the neoliberal Schröder regime" (as an alternative to the Agenda 2010)
a new constitution discussed and ratified by the people (according to artikel 146 German constitution).

The party's stated goals are easily identified as anti-neoliberal, left-leaning and relatively close to the stance taken by left social democrats, leftist Greens, or the new Electoral Alternative for Labor and Social Justice. The only programme point that cannot even remotely be found in other parties' programmes is the resurrection of the wall that once divided East and West Germany, something that, according to certain polls, some 20% of all Germans wish for.

All in all, the PARTEI is more a satirical action to promote the popularity of the Titanic magazine than a real political party. Their official goals are situated between populism and pure nonsense.

[edit] Die PARTEI and Titanic magazine

The Titanic, a satirical magazine that is decidedly left-leaning but quite drastically targets people from all walks of life, is the party's official media organ. Titanic writers already took part in several elections in Germany. At the German federal election, 2002 they put up a stand, supposedly for the Free Democratic Party shouting racist slogans, in January 2003, several Titanic authors, pretended to be candidates of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Hesse. At the elections 2003 in Bavaria Titanic surrendered in the name of the Bavarian Social Democrats ("SPD: Wir geben auf"), who always face the superiority of the Christian Social Union.

[edit] Campaign 2005

In June 2005, die Partei agreed with the Anarchist Pogo Party to join forces in an alliance, Zweckbündnis, for the German federal election, 2005.

The most spectacular campaign action of the party was to sell its advertising times in German television (every party participating at German federal elections gets some minutes of TV time for campaign spots for free) at eBay. As a reference to a scandal of masked advertising in public television earlier the year, the party's -mostly satirical- TV spots were presented in the corporate design of a German airline company.

Candidating only in the cities of Hamburg and Berlin, the PARTEI gained 10,379 votes (0.022% of all votes on national level).