German Party Landscape Colorful as Always

Voters tired of government in general can go to the polls in likely elections on September 18 and cast their ballot for the Anarchist Pogo Party. Those wanting a return to strict Judeo-Christian values can throw their support behind the Party of Bible-faithful Christians. They're just two of the 34 political parties that have been cleared by the federal election commission to join the campaign that's beginning to heat up.

The eight parties that are now sitting in state and federal parliaments all got the green light on Friday, but so did 26 smaller political grouping that reveal a vibrancy, and dash of weirdness, in Germany's political culture that is often overlooked, since the big guys get all the press.

There are the single-issue campaigners, like the Pro DM party, which hates the euro and wants to go back to the good old days of the deutschmark. They'll need a bit of luck, though, and aren't expected to pass the five-percent hurdle required to make it into parliament.

Parties like the Gray Panthers and the Animal Protection Party give a voice to fairly powerful minority groupings and while they also generally don't make it into legislating chambers, they do have an influence on lawmakers. The Panthers in particular, which represent the interests of older Germans, could find themselves gaining in strength as Germany's population continues to age.

Other groups seem somewhat outdated, like the Marxist-Leninist Party, or simply puzzling, like a party calling itself the Party of Work, the Constitutional State, Animal Protection, Promotion of Elites and Grassroots Democratic Initiative. It was founded by the staff of a satirical magazine and says it wants to rebuild the Berlin Wall.

Since the approved parties are all guaranteed TV time on Germany's public stations, in the weeks leading up to the elections viewers will likely see some interesting ads. Some, like ones produced in the past by the above-mentioned Marxists, seem like a blast from the past, with a young woman raising her fist and decrying the imperialists. Ads by others reveal that although they've been approved for the election, their production budgets are pretty small.

But not every party which wants to can stand in the elections and there were several which did not get approval. The party representing the Sorb minority in eastern Germany didn't make the cut, while the German Communist Party pulled their application at the last minute. And a few of the, well, more imaginative organizations were politely turned down, such as the Bears for Germany, the Global Future Party, and the decidedly New Age-sounding group calling itself Spiritual Consciousness.