Germany's Lafontaine eyes return to governor's job in his home state

BERLIN: Oskar Lafontaine, one of the driving forces behind Germany's new Left party, is set to lead its campaign for state elections in his home region next year and hopes to win back his old job as governor, his party said Tuesday.

The Left's branch in Saarland, a small region on the French border, said local party leaders have proposed that Lafontaine be its lead candidate in the elections, expected in late 2009. A party conference is to endorse that move in August.

Hendrik Thalheim, a spokesman for the party's group in the federal parliament, said Lafontaine, 64, hopes to become governor again.

Lafontaine was Saarland's governor from 1985 to 1998, when he was a leading member of the center-left Social Democrats of former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder — whose Cabinet he quit acrimoniously in 1999.

In 2005, Lafontaine quit the Social Democrats altogether and helped form The Left, a fusion of former communists from eastern Germany and other ex-Social Democrats disillusioned by Schroeder's efforts to reform the welfare state.

The party won seats in the federal parliament that year and the Social Democrats have since struggled to respond to the appeal of its anti-reform, pacifist message.

At present, Saarland — a gritty coal mining region — is governed by Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats.

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