All parties standing state-wide lists of candidates are able to have a short election message broadcast on regional radio stations and on the two main national television channels. A total of 14 radio and 4 television messages by the Partei für Soziale Gleichheit (Socialist Equality Party) will be broadcast before polling day on September 27. The first radio spot was broadcast Wednesday, September 2 on WDR4, which has a daily audience of 3.7 million. Two of the television broadcasts will be transmitted before popular news programmes which regularly attract around 1.7 and 3.5 million viewers respectively. Full details of the stations and transmission times can be found at: www.gleichheit.de/wahlspot.htm .
Below is reproduced the text of the election message.
The 10 richest families in Germany together possess 110 billion marks. This is more than is spent in a year on unemployment benefits and welfare. The gulf between the rich and poor was never so great. We stand for a different sort of society. The needs of the people must take precedence over the profits of big business.
We want to realise this aim internationally. We reject every form of nationalism and xenophobia. We want to establish a workers government and not a government of the wealthy and better-off.
Work is right and not a privilege. We call for a programme of immediate measures to create millions of new jobs. The taxes of the rich and the millionaires must be drastically increased. Only in this way can the cuts in social spending be reversed.
The SPD [Social Democratic Party], the Greens and the PDS [Party of Democratic Socialism--former Stalinist party of state in East Germany] will not fulfil these demands; they also stand for the interests of big business.
Working people need a new party; only in this way can they intervene in political events as an independent force. Vote for the Socialist Equality Party. Take the first step in building a new party for the working class.
See Also:
Socialist Equality Party begins election campaign in Germany
[3 September 1998]
Growing child poverty in Germany
[3 September 1998]
Partei für Soziale Gleichheit (Socialist Equality Party) Election Programme 1998:
For an independent political movement of the working class
[28 August 1998]