One to watch - 02/06/2009

Lothar Bisky, Germany

By Amanda Morrow/RFI

One-time filmmaker from West Germany, Lothar Bisky is spearheading the European ticket of German radical left-wing outfit Die Linke, otherwise known as the Left Party, which was conceived following the 2007 merger of the Party of Democratic Socialism and the Labour and Social Justice Electoral Alternative.

Bisky, who co-chairs Die Linke with Oskar Lafontaine, is also president of the Party of the European Left - the largest party in the European Parliament - to which Die Link belongs. He also has a media interest as the publisher of socialist newspaper Neues Deutschland.

After living an impoverished youth in northern West Germany, Bisky emigrated to the German Democratic Republic when he turned 18. He joined the Socialist Unity Party, despite their hesitation that he came from the West, taking on leadership roles after the fall of communism. A documentary filmmaker, Bisky worked at the University of Film and Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg until 1990, going on to become a member of the board of directors of regional television channel the following year.

Campaiging with the slogan "Millionaires pay up" - which will follow through to the country's parliamentary ballot in September - Die Linke commits itself to democratic socialism. It condemns the "extortion racket" to which it says workers are subjected, and views itself at the most committed leftist of the five factions represented in the Bundestag, where it occupies 53 of 612 seats.

Bisky has says most Germans believed the effects of the recession were just starting to make themselves felt - that a "tsunami" of unemployment is due later this year, or in 2010. But successive polls show the party has been making little progress - sometimes even losing ground.

Die Linke is hovering at a 10 per cent share of the vote, despite clinching 15 per cent a year after its formation, when it was Germany's third-largest political force behind the Christian Democrats and SPD coalition government. In recent months, the party has been overtaken by the right-wing liberal Free Democratic party.

Other candidates to watch:

Geert Wilders