the left wing under a very, very charismatic leader, which was important, a man named oskar lafontaine, withdrew from the socialist party in order--excuse me--to found this new party the die linke. the other part of the die linke is the party that used to be the dominant party in what was east germany. you know, the east german and west german separation ended, and the two countries were unified early in the 1990s. so there's now one germany again, there aren't two, but in the east, which was a communist part of the eastern european block, that party was called the socialist unity party, sed, sozialistische einheitspartei, and that party dissolved, but large numbers of it moved also into this linke. so it's a coalition. in the eastern part--this is something americans tend not to o know for reasons having to do with our newspapers and our media--in eastern europe, in eastern germanyny the mass of people still vote for that party. so that party runs a number of the regional governments. in germany, they don't call them states like we do, 50 states. they call them laender, lands. so many