Thursday, January 6, 2022

Linke Party Story

 After the election results of September 2021 were laid out....one of the key things noted was that the Linke Party (the far left political group of Germany) is probably in serious trouble....enough that they might not survive the 2025 election.

Last night, ARD nightly news (public TV, Channel One)....had a piece of discussion over this.

The chatter?  More or less....a rebranding of the party.

The word 're-invent' came up. 

Their selling point?  They aren't the SPD or Green Party, and that's really the key element.  

The fact that their political stance only sells in the five eastern states of Germany?  Yeah, that fact keeps coming up.  In the other eleven German states....in a typical state election, the Linke folks are lucky if they can get five to seven percent of regional votes, and that's on a rare basis.

The fact that the SPD and Greens 'sell' around three-quarters of the Linke 'products' now?  Yeah.....that doesn't help much.

Over the past decade, one of the oddball things pushed by the Linke folks was the idea of a free bus/railway ticket for all students/workers.  Who would pay for the ticket in the end?  Well...via higher taxes....everyone else.  That wasn't laid out in the details but any idiot could ask the question and realize the tax impact on the general public. 

Are we looking at the end of the Linke Party?  My suggestion is that they have to evolve into something else entirely different, and capture more interest in western states of Germany.  If they fail at this....I think the 2025 national election will be the last time that they carry any representation in the Bundestag, and they become just another regional minor political party.

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