GERMANY: The third most popular political party in Germany at the moment has neither a political manifesto nor a name.
In fact it isn't even a proper political party. "The Left Party" is the proposed name for the electoral alliance between two parties: the reformed communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the WASG, a new splinter group of left-wingers who left the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in protest at Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's economic and social reforms.
Polls give the alliance 9 per cent support ahead of September's planned general election, and expectation is growing that the no-name party could cause the greatest upset in German politics in recent years.
At the helm are the greatest love-hate figures in German politics, former PDS leader Gregor Gysi and the political nemesis of Mr Schröder, Oskar Lafontaine.
Dr Gysi was the first leader of the PDS after it emerged from East Germany's old SED, and soon gained a name for himself as a fast-talking, humorous political showman.
Three heart attacks and brain surgery forced him to withdraw from politics, but he says he couldn't resist one more spin on the roundabout after sensing the chance to realise his oldest political dream.
"I am 57 and there is little that excites me apart from the unification of the left, east and west, and to be able to say that this unification came from the east," he said in an interview with The Irish Times. "The PDS is only taken seriously in the east but not in Germany as a political whole. We would like to be noticed in the future and for our ideas to be discussed as an alternative to neo-liberal positions."
His partner, fellow early retiree Oskar Lafontaine, masterminded Mr Schröder's 1998 electoral victory, only to resign as finance minister a year later after the two men fell out over the political direction of finance policy.
Mr Lafontaine has become a tragi-comic figure in the intervening years, appearing at regular intervals to threaten Mr Schröder, like a German Wicked Witch of the West, taunting: "I'll get you, my pretty." This time he might make good on his threat.
The government's economic and labour reform programme is highly unpopular and Mr Schröder's decision to bring forward the election by a year has robbed him of time to let the reforms boost economic growth or drive down 11 per cent unemployment.
The SPD has just 24 per cent support, dropping week by week, while the opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) have 45 per cent support. The PDS has strong political support in the east and serves in several eastern state coalition governments. It fell just short of the 5 per cent parliamentary hurdle at the 2002 elections, a shortfall that could be filled by the WASG which polled 2 per cent in its first political outing in a recent state election.
The Left Party hopes to motivate the large untapped block of left-wing SPD voters, who are angry at the reforms but who would be more likely to stay at home than vote for the PDS because of its historical associations with the SED dictatorship.
"The party would have no problem crossing the 5 per cent hurdle because of the current unhappiness with reforms," says Prof Richard Woyke, political scientist at the University of Münster.
Its entry to parliament would change the political landscape, although Dr Gysi rules out mirroring the Swedish political model and allowing the Left Party support the SPD for a third term.
"But long-term they have no real chance with two completely different political cultures and two demagogue leaders on ego trips," says Prof Woyke.
There are more immediate problems as well. Dr Gysi needs the backing of two-thirds of PDS rank and file, who so far appear unimpressed by his plans to ditch the party name to aid his pursuit of greater electoral glory.
Mr Lafontaine has created his own problems after suggesting it was the responsibility of government to protect workers from Fremdarbeiter - a term for foreign workers last used by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
What he has since described as a slip of the tongue has prompted analysts to draw parallels between Mr Lafontaine and Austria's Jörg Haider.
"Is this man on the left fringe the person whose appearance we feared for years on the extreme-right?" asked columnist Heribert Prantl in the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
"The media-savvy spokesman for the small man, who doesn't shy away from xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism, is a position that remained unoccupied in Germany. Is it now filled?"
SPD leaders have dismissed Mr Lafontaine and the new left-wing party but, as the project became more concrete, the Social Democrats have rediscovered their own left-wing roots.
SPD leader Franz Müntefering went on a rampage recently against "locust" managers who, he said, descend on German companies and pick them clean before moving on. The SPD-led government has pulled out of its sleeve plans for a "rich tax" on top-earners just six months after it cut the top tax rate.
The Greens, afraid voters will view them as an unaffordable ecological luxury in these hard economic times, are repackaging themselves for the election as a "modern left-wing party".