Party of Democratic Socialism
For the Indian PDS, see Party of Democratic Socialism (India).
socialist political party in Germany.
The PDS is the legal successor of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) (the ruling communist party of the former German Democratic Republic). The grassroots democracy movement that forced the dismissal of East German head of state Erich Honecker in 1989 also empowered a younger generation of reform politicians in the SED who looked to Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union as their model for political change. Reformers like authors Stefan Heym and Christa Wolf and human rights attorney Gregor Gysi rose to leadership, and by the end of 1989 the last hardline members of the party's Central Committee had resigned. A new name, "Party of Democratic Socialism," was adopted to distance the party from its communist past. By early 1990, the PDS was no longer a "Marxist-Leninist" party, though Marxist and communist minority factions continue to exist.
In the first all-German elections in 1990, the PDS gained only 2.4% of the nationwide vote, although one in ten voters in the east German states supported the post-communists. It entered the Bundestag with 17 deputies led by Gysi, a charismatic and articulate politician. In the 1994 election, the party increased its vote to 4.4 percent and re-entered the Bundestag with an enlarged caucus of 30 deputies. In 1998, the party reached the high-water mark in its fortunes by electing 36 deputies with 5.1% of the national vote, thus clearing the critical 5% threshhold for proportional representation and full parliamentary status. The party's future seemed bright, but it suffered from a number of weaknesses, not the least of which was its dependence on Gysi, considered by supporters and critics alike as a super-star in German politics. Gysi's resignation in 2000 after losing a policy debate with party leftists soon spelled trouble for the PDS. In the 2002 election, the PDS vote sank back to 4.3% and the post-communists were able to seat only two deputies, (Petra Pau and Gesine Lötzsch).
After the 2002 debacle, the PDS adopted a new program and elected a respected moderate and Gysi ally, Lothar Bisky, as chair. A renewed sense of self-confidence soon re-energized the party. In the 2004 elections to the European Parliament, the PDS won 6.1% of the vote nationwide, its highest total in a federal election. Its strength in the eastern German states continued to grow, where today it is the second-strongest party after the Christian Democrats.
The PDS is the junior partner to the Social Democratic Party in the coalition governments of two German states, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the capital Berlin. While costing the PDS some support in both states, co-governing with the Social Democrats has burnished its reputation as a pragmatic, rather than ideological party. It remains strong in local government in eastern Germany, with more than 6,500 town councillors and 64 elected mayors. The party continues to win voters by emphasizing political competence, but also profits from growing dissatisfaction with high unemployment and cutbacks in health insurance and unemployment benefits.
PDS Member of the European Parliament Feleknas Uca is the world's only elected Yezidi politician.
It is one of the founders of the European Left party.
For the European Parliament election, 2004, the Englishman Keith Barlow, living in Leipzig, was one of their candidates.
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