STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Get a low APR NextCard Visa in 30 seconds! 1. Fill in the brief application 2. Receive approval decision within 30 seconds 3. Get rates as low as 2.99% Intro or 9.99% Ongoing APR and no annual fee! Apply NOW! http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/NextCard ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [Via... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . . ----- Original Message ----- From: Downwithcapitalism <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 7:29 PM Subject: [downwithcapitalism] Political sea-change in Berlin? Reuters. 7 June 2001. Berlin City Government Collapses Amid Finance Woes. BERLIN -- Berlin's city hall coalition fell apart Thursday amid recriminations over mismanagement and sleaze, raising the prospect of former communists taking power in the German capital for the first time since the Wall came down. Social Democrats walked out on the conservative mayor, ending a left-right alliance formed when the city was reunited after the Cold War and which kept the heirs to the East German elite out of power despite their grip on Berlin's eastern third. The Social Democrats, known by the acronym SPD, led nationally by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, called for new municipal elections and said they would consider a new alliance with the ex-communist PDS. The SPD hold the mayor's Christian Democrats responsible for huge losses and a sleaze scandal at a city-owned bank that have ravaged Berlin's already stretched budget and made a mockery of ambitions to rebuild its reputation as a world-class metropolis. Critics say both parties have prolonged the shady machine politics that dominated West Berlin when it was a heavily subsidized frontline bastion in the Cold War and have failed to adapt to the loss of federal support over the past decade. "We want new elections. This coalition has no more legitimacy. We want to give the citizens a chance to have another government," Peter Strieder, the Social Democrat leader in the city of 3.5 million, said at a news conference. Senior SPD officials have said the party would consider linking up with the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), though the ex-communists are still pariahs for many west Berliners. Schroeder, speaking at a separate event, said the national SPD leadership would respect the decision of the local party, although he ruled out including the PDS in national government any time soon. His current partners are the Greens. Mayor Eberhard Diepgen says the entry of the PDS to the municipal government would be a cruel irony ahead of August's 40th anniversary of the building of the Wall. But the issue has been forced by a $1.7-billion hole in the books of Bankgesellschaft Berlin, a bank 57 percent-owned by the city, which has run into problems with bad debts as property prices have slumped following a reunification real estate boom. Diepgen's close friend and political right-hand man, Klaus Landowsky, had to resign senior posts in the bank and the city assembly after admitting taking a political donation from a real estate firm to which the bank had extended a big loan in 1995. Diepgen said he would ask his party to back new elections after the summer. One SPD official said the earliest date for an election would be September 23, three years ahead of schedule. The CDU won nearly 41 percent of votes in the 1999 state ballot to 22.4 percent for the SPD and nearly 18 percent for the PDS. Recent opinion polls put the CDU on around 31 percent in the city, the SPD on 29 percent and the PDS on 14 percent. "A ruling alliance without the PDS is not possible," local PDS leader Petra Pau told Hesse Radio. "Berlin is bankrupt." * * * * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
