Bodo Ramelow
Encyclopedia
Osterholz-Scharmbeck
Osterholz-Scharmbeck is a town and the capital of the district of Osterholz, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Osterholz-Scharmbeck is situated in between the cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven.-Neighbouring places:* Bremen * Delmenhorst...
) is a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
politician of the Left Party
Left Party (Germany)
The Party of Democratic Socialism was a democratic socialist political party active in Germany from 1989 to 2007. It was the legal successor to the Socialist Unity Party , which ruled the German Democratic Republic until 1990. From 1990 through to 2005, the PDS had been seen as the left-wing...
. He is deputy chairman of his party's group in the Bundestag
Bundestag
The Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...
.
The former chairman of the labor union HBV, Ramelow was elected into the Landtag
Landtag
A Landtag is a representative assembly or parliament in German-speaking countries with some legislative authority.- Name :...
in the Free State of Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
in 1999 as a member of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS; since renamed the Left Party). There he became deputy chairman, and since 2001 he has been chairman of the PDS/Left Party's group in the Landtag.
In February 2004, Ramelow was elected top candidate of the PDS for the Thuringian State elections four months later
Thuringia state election, 2004
The Thuringia state election, 2004 was conducted on 13 June 2004 to elect members to the Landtag of Thuringia.- Results :- Sources :*...
. In June 2004 the party gained its best result in Thuringia since German reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
with 26,1%
Thuringia state election, 2004
The Thuringia state election, 2004 was conducted on 13 June 2004 to elect members to the Landtag of Thuringia.- Results :- Sources :*...
of the votes. Therefore Ramelow was re-elected as the PDS chairman in Thuringia.
Starting in June 2005, Ramelow was chief negotiator during unification talks between the PDS and the WASG, a unification that resulted in the new party The Left
The Left (Germany)
The Left , also commonly referred to as the Left Party , is a democratic socialist political party in Germany. The Left is the most left-wing party of the five represented in the Bundestag....
. In September 2005 he was elected deputy chairman of The Left party in the Bundestag. In the Thuringia state election in September 2009
Thuringia state election, 2009
Thuringia held state elections on 30 August 2009, the same day as the Saarland and Saxony state elections. The election established the composition of the Landtag of Thuringia...
he led The Left
The Left (Germany)
The Left , also commonly referred to as the Left Party , is a democratic socialist political party in Germany. The Left is the most left-wing party of the five represented in the Bundestag....
to become the second biggest party with 27.4% of the votes, making him a competitor for the post of minister-president.
In 2003 it came to light that the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz had observed him and had opened a file on him because of his alleged contacts with the German Communist Party
German Communist Party
The German Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist party in Germany.-History:The DKP was formed in West Germany in 1968, in order to fill the place of the Communist Party of Germany , which had been banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1956...
(DKP) during the 1980s. Supposedly the observation had been stopped following Ramelow's entry into the Landtag in 1999, but in May 2006 the Administrative court
Administrative court
Greece, as a civil law country has administrative courts. The establishment of those courts can be found in article 94 of the Constitution of the Hellenic Republic 1975, as revised in 2001. The administrative courts are composed from districts Courts of First Instance, district Courts of Appeal and...
of Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...
decreed that the Thuringian Verfassungsschutz had to reveal the file and the stored data. It became known that the federal Verfassungsschutz had observed Ramelow for many years.