Oskar Lafontaine

Oskar Lafontaine was born in Saarlouis on September 16, 1943. In the course of his political life, he was Lord Mayor of Saarbrücken, Minister President of Saarland, Chairman of the SPD and Federal Minister of Finance. In March 1999, he resigned from all his previous political posts in the SPD due to criticism of Gerhard Schröder's red-green government course. In 2005, Oskar Lafontaine switched from the SPD to the newly founded Electoral Alternative for Labor and Social Justice (WASG). On his initiative, the WASG entered into an electoral alliance with the PDS in June 2005. From 2005 to 2009, Lafontaine was parliamentary group leader of the Left Party in the German Bundestag together with Gregor Gysi. From June 16, 2007 to May 15, 2010, he was party chairman of the newly formed DIE LINKE party alongside Lothar Bisky. He resigned from both political offices due to cancer. In the 2009 and 2012 Saarland state election campaigns, he was the top candidate for DIE LINKE. He has led the Left Party parliamentary group in the Saarland state parliament since September 2009. From July 2010 to July 2014, he was also Chairman of the International Commission of DIE LINKE. For Oskar Lafontaine, being a democratic socialist does not mean refusing to take responsibility. Nor does it mean being free from mistakes and errors. But it does mean being credible when it comes to fighting for the socially disadvantaged: “Because we can never be happy if others are unhappy!”