Wendish People's Party
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Serbska Ludowa Strona (Wendish People's Party) (SLS) was founded on 26 March 2005 in Cottbus to represent the Sorb/Wendish ethnic and linguistic minority (around 60,000 people) in the German Länder of Saxony and Brandenburg in the Lusatia region. The party founders consider it a successor of the Lusatia People's Party founded in 1919 (renamed Wendish People's Party in 1924) which was dissolved by the Nazi regime.
The Wendish Popular Party has been criticised by many Sorbs, for example the Domowina, as it is felt that the group could be better represented by the existing German parties.
The party arose to take part in the 2007 municipal elections, the 2008 regional elections in Brandenburg and the 2009 municipal and regional elections in Saxony.
Another ethnic minorities party, the South Schleswig Voter Federation of Danes and Frisians, has gained regional and local representation in Schleswig-Holstein where it enjoys an exemption from the electoral threshold of 5% thanks to a German-Danish treaty of 1955. A similar exemption is mentioned in the Brandenburg constitution for the Sorb/Wendish minority, but not in Saxony. Accordingly, the party leaders have said that they need 7,000 votes in Brandenburg to gain a seat in the Landtag of Brandenburg.
