Bodo Ramelow

Bodo Ramelow (born February 16, 1956 in Osterholz-Scharmbeck) is a German politician of the Left Party. He is deputy chairman of his party's group in the Bundestag.

The former chairman of the labor union HBV, Ramelow was elected into the Landtag in the Free State of Thuringia in 1999 as a member of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS; since renamed the Left Party). There he became deputy chairman, and since 2001 he has been chairman of the PDS/Left Party's group in the Landtag.

In February 2004, Ramelow was elected top candidate of the PDS for the Thuringian State elections four months later. In June 2004 the party gained its best result in Thuringia since German reunification with 26,1% of the votes. Therefore Ramelow was re-elected as the PDS chairman in Thuringia.Starting in June 2005, Ramelow was chief negotiator during unification talks between the PDS and the WASG. In September 2005 he was elected deputy chairman of the Left Party in the Bundestag.

In 2003 it came to light that the "Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz" had observed him and had opened a file on him because of his alleged contacts with the German Communist Party (DKP) during the 1980s. Supposedly the observation had been stopped following Ramelow's entry into the Landtag in 1999, but in May 2006 the Administrative court of Weimar decreed that the Thuringian "Verfassungsschutz" had to reveal the file and the stored data. It became known that the federal "Verfassungsschutz" had observed Ramelow for many years.

External links

* [http://www.bodo-ramelow.de/ Official Website]