Lothar Bisky was a German politician. He was the chairman of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor of East Germany's Socialist Unity Party (SED). In June 2007, he became co-chairman of The Left party, formed by a merger of the PDS and the much smaller Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative. From 2007 until 2010, he was the President of the Party of the European Left. Also, he was the Publisher of the socialist newspaper Neues Deutschland.