Social Democratic Party of South Tyrol

The Social Democratic Party of South Tyrol (SPS ) was a political party that was founded in 1973 by Hans Dietl, a former top exponents of the South Tyrolean People's Party ( SVP). She was represented by 1973-1981 in the South Tyrolean Landtag.

History

The Social Democratic Party of South Tyrol (SPS ) was founded in 1973 in the run-up to the South Tyrolean Landtag elections as a focal point for opposition different ideological provenance, whose primary goal was to establish a competitive counter-movement to the South Tyrolean People's Party. Among the founding members of the party listed next to the former SVP parliamentarian Hans Dietl, among others former members of the Social Progressive Party of South Tyrol (SFP ) and Silvio Flor a former representative of the Italian Communist Party ( PCI / KPI).

The PLC reached at their first choice inaugural 1973 right away 5.14% of the vote and thus two parliamentary seats. It was at this time the hitherto strongest German -language opposition party at the country level, but without possessing a larger organizational structure in the communities.

Despite the presence in the South Tyrolean Landtag it did not succeed in the long term the PLC to assert themselves in the political landscape of South Tyrol. As early as 1975, Hans Dietl pulled due to illness from the country's politics back (his mandate took Alfons Rigott ); However Dietl could not be replaced by a profiled personality to the party leadership. 1976 failed a smooth merger with the Social Progressive Party of South Tyrol (SFP ) of the reservations of the SFP state representative Egmont Jenny.

In the 1978 state elections, the PLC defended a mandate for Willi Erschbaumer, was inside her but already torn. Erschbaumer was replaced as party leaders and in 1981 expelled from the party. At the state elections in 1983 undertook the SPS one last attempt to return to the South Tyrolean Landtag, where among other things Egmont Jenny (SFP ) and Alfred Frei (formerly PSI) as a candidate at the top list. The party won only 1.35% of the vote, narrowly missing the new parliament catchment handle it. The last church mandatories of the PLC, which had been elected in 1980 20 councilors resigned, later than 1985 of their mandates from.

Thematic priorities

The Social Democratic Party of South Tyrol decreed in the early years does not have an independent ideological profile, but it is based on the political stature of Hans Dietl, who had presented itself in the ranks of the SVP until his expulsion from the party as a straight, Christian- social embossed representatives of underprivileged rural population. As part of the Europe-wide trends in favor of social democratic parties, the PLC was trying to position itself in the wake of this development as the second political force in addition to the SVP. The party dealt primarily with the solution of social problems (in terms of employment, education and social services), was contrary to the Social Progress Party in South Tyrol (SFP ) but clearly at home in the German-speaking segment of the political landscape of South Tyrol.

It was only after leaving Dietl from the PLC and a moving up of younger activists, the party known in their basic program from 1978 to democratic socialism and tried to establish stronger links with the historical social democracy Tyrol as well as Social Democrats and the SPD.

The PLC remained in the political landscape of South Tyrol always a party of socially engaged opposition that were largely drifted away from the original core constituency layer of the SVP. With the establishment of a separate wing workers in 1975 succeeded the South Tyrolean People's Party, successful long-term stem this erosion process on its left wing.