The party of democratic socialism: Ex‐communists entrenched as East German regional protest party

Five years after German unification, the Party of Democratic Socialism has become a left‐socialist opposition party represented in both federal and state parliaments. Many German observers stress elements of continuity between the SED, the former ruling party of East Germany, and the PDS, yet there are substantial differences in structure, programme and membership. A degree of ideological diversity appears in the conflicts between the left‐socialist PDS majority and the minority Communist Platform. Elections during 1994, at both state and federal level, showed that the PDS had developed its role as a protest party of East German ‘unification losers’ and consolidated a regional support base with strongholds in East Berlin whereas its support in the former West Germany remained minimal. A strategy of marginalizing the PDS is pursued by leaders of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, yet the regional strength of the PDS in the east may force the SPD towards a mixed strategy of competition and partial co‐operation with the PDS.