Bodo Ramelow
Bodo Ramelow ( born February 16, 1956 in Osterholz- Beck) is a German politician (The Left ). He is since 2009 - as from 2001 to 2005 for the PDS - Group Chairman in the Thuringian state parliament and opposition leader. Previously, he was a member from 2005 to 2009 at the 16th German Bundestag, where he was vice chairman of the Left Party. 2004 and 2009 he was the top candidate of his party for the elections to the Thuringian state parliament. Ramelow is evangelical Christian, and until September 2009, the religio-political spokesman of the parliamentary party " Die Linke". Since 1 December 2012, he serves on the Board of the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation.
Career
Bodo Ramelow learned after the secondary school in the occupation of retail merchant in casting. In Marburg he earned at a vocational school building, the high school and at the university of high school, the commercial college entrance. He worked as a trainee and as branch manager and passed the ICC exam the instructor ( AdA license).
From 1981 to 1990, Ramelow union secretary in central Hesse, from 1990 to June 1999 state chairman of the union HBV in Thuringia and from 1992 to June 1999 Chairman of the housing co-operative future in Erfurt.
Rise in the country's politics
On Labor Day 1994 Bodo Ramelow stepped on the central May Day celebration of the PDS in Erfurt - next to Gregor Gysi, Gerhard Jüttemann, Gabi Zimmer and Henry Finch - as a speaker on. In January 1997 he was one of the initiators and first signatories of the Erfurt Declaration, a call of nearly 40 artists, intellectuals, trade unionists and politicians for greater social justice and political change through closer cooperation between the SPD, the Greens and the PDS.
1999 candidate Ramelow, who joined the PDS in April 1999, on the country's list of the party for the state elections in Thuringia in 1999 to 2nd place after the former state chairman Gabi Zimmer. He thus became the first elected to the Thuringian Parliament, where he was until 2001 Vice PDS Group Chairman in 1999 and was elected on 14 November 2001 the chairman of the parliamentary group. In 2002, he was also a member of the Advisory Board of the Thuringian Development Bank ( TAB).
On 20-21. September 2003 nominated the Thuringian PDS in Lobenstein with Bodo Ramelow first time its own candidate for the post of Minister President of Thuringia. On 7 February 2004 his party elected him No. 1 on the country list for the upcoming state election in 2004. During the state election on 13 June 2004, the PDS reached 26.1 % of the vote to her until then best result in Thuringia, Ramelow won in the constituency Erfurt I is a direct mandate. The choice of bringing an end to the CDU majority, but he did not reach. Ramelow was subsequently re-elected as chairman of the PDS Group in the Thuringian state parliament.
Thuringian Parliament Election 2009
December 2, 2007 Bodo Ramelow was unanimously nominated as the leading candidate for the parliamentary elections in 2009, the National Congress of the Thuringian left. During the election campaign it became public that Ramelow knowingly employed a former full-time employee of the East German secret police in his Berlin Bundestag office. In the state elections in Thuringia in 2009 Bodo Ramelow missed although his goal with his left hand to reach the 30 percent mark, but was able to increase the result of his party over 2004 again by 1.3 percentage points. He won again with a direct mandate, now in the constituency Erfurt III. His first vote was the scarcest of all constituencies: Only 34 votes separated him from the CDU Minister of Justice Marion Walsmann.
The parliamentary election results from August 30, 2009 provided a mathematical majority for a possible red - red or red -red-green coalition. However, the SPD and Greens reaffirmed their expressed before the election dislike Ramelow as Prime Minister, while Ramelow his part firmly against any choice of the SPD's top candidate Christoph Matschie spoke to the Prime Minister. On September 17 Ramelow finally declared his willingness to forego a possible red-red- green coalition on the premiership, although Matschie renounce and Linke, SPD and Greens " equal rights make a personal proposal " would. This push Ramelow also met with his own party leadership to criticism.
The decision Matschie to form a coalition with the CDU, Ramelow sharply criticized. When the CDU candidate Christine Dear servant surprisingly fell through at the election for Prime Minister in the first and second ballot to Ramelow decided in the third round to compete against them. He received 27 votes, dear servant was elected with 55 votes. Then Ramelow was re-elected Group Chairman on 3 November 2009, after this office after the state election - had held first again Dieter Hausold - with regard to a first still possible involvement Ramelow to the state government.
In connection with investigations of the Dresden prosecutor's office because of the blockade of notified by the rightwing JLO demonstration ( " Funeral March " ) in February 2010 in Dresden Ramelow immunity by the Thuringian state parliament in October 2010, was terminated. The allegation was breach of the Assembly Act.
Federal policy
Bodo Ramelow was determined on 13 December 2004 to the campaign manager of the PDS for the 2005 federal election. As of June 2005, he was chief negotiator for the Left Party in the talks with the party formation with the WASG.
Ramelow won on 18 September 2005, a mandate for the 16th German Bundestag on the state list of the Thuringian Left Party. The direct mandate constituency 196 ( Gera / Jena / Saale- Holzland ) he missed with 29.4 % against Volker Blumentritt of the SPD ( 31.8 %). Ramelow was elected on 30 September 2005 as Deputy Group Chairman without department. After his election to the Bundestag, he retired from 17 October 2005 through the Thuringian state parliament. His successor as PDS Group Chairman Dieter was there Hausold.
In the course of the party formation process, which was finally completed with the establishment of the Left Party, Ramelow became known as the chief negotiator on the part of Linkspartei.PDS wider circles in the WASG. That was where his hard, but factual manner negotiation not only on reciprocal love. One critic referred to his approach as authoritarian, while others held him in good stead, that agreements under time pressure can only be reached through strong leadership. In particular, he became involved in the issue of the merger of the different youth structures of the Left Party and the WASG, he drove forward on the part of the Left Party. While negotiations within the PDS youth structures were run before his involvement for years in the sand.
In May 2008, Bodo Ramelow was from the office of the election campaign manager of the Left and federalism was commissioner of the Federal Executive Committee of his party, which he joined in 2004.
Monitoring by the Protection of the Constitution
In January 2003 it was announced that the Thuringian State Office had applied for constitutional protection under Helmut Roewer about Bodo Ramelow an Act for alleged contacts with the DKP in the 1980s in West Germany, and let him monitor. The Thuringian Data Protection Officer Silvia Liebaug confirmed that Ramelow file was conducted from 1996 to 1999. After his entry into the state parliament, the Interior Ministry had stopped watching, however. On the same day criticized Ramelow, the Datenschützerin have published details from the unfamiliar file by press release.
On 15 August 2005 he spoke against MDR 1 Radio Thüringen, he stood still under observation. The collection of data on it is up to date and rich to the year 2005. Having the Land Office had denied access to the file it for Protection of the Constitution, the Administrative Court of Weimar decided on 5 May 2006 that the constitutional protection the complete file and the stored data to the court, and thus also to the applicant must submit for inspection. As part of the action also became known that Bodo Ramelow was observed for several years by the Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution.
The Thuringian Higher Administrative Court decided on 17 September 2007 that the blocking of Constitutional Protection Acts of Ramelow was illegal. To a portion of the constitutional protection files there according to the Court no basis for blocking and to another part of the Home Office had not sufficiently justified the blocking.
On 13 December 2007 the Cologne Administrative Court ruled that the observation Ramelow is unlawful by the Protection of the Constitution, and he could no longer be monitored secret service, because the statutory requirements for observation by the Protection of the Constitution were not met. The Supreme Administrative Court confirmed on appeal the first instance judgment on 13 February 2009., The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig, however, declared on 21 July 2010, the observation Ramelow by generally accessible sources for proportionate and appropriate. The reason his work has been cited as a leading official of the Left Party, in which the lower court saw evidence of anti-constitutional activities. The dangers arising from the observation of MPs were reduced by the only open observation and justified by the extra weight of the protection of the free democratic basic order.
Ramelow put a constitutional complaint against the judgment and announced that in case of defeat to appeal to the European courts. By decision of 17 September 2013, the Federal Constitutional Court said in a decision guideline monitoring Ramelow inadmissible.
Family
Ramelow In November 2006, married his third wife with a supervisor / coach, among other things, Organizational development at the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation is. He has two sons from his first marriage.
Awards
- Abraham Geiger plaque of Abraham Geiger College at the University of Potsdam (2013 )