GERMANY: Far right makes gains in regional elections

A leading far-right party won seats in a regional parliament in eastern Germany on Sunday (September 17, 2006), profiting from a weak economy there and mounting anger towards Chancellor Angela Merkel's government in Berlin. The National Democratic Party (NPD), which the government has likened to the early Nazi Party and tried to ban, won 7.3 percent of the vote in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a northeastern state on the Baltic Sea which borders Poland. The result allows the NPD, which advocates closing German borders to immigrants, to enter the regional assembly, making Mecklenburg-Vorpommern the third state in the ex-communist east with far-right representation. The result was condemned by mainstream politicians and Jewish groups, who called on the federal government to renew its bid to ban the party after a previous attempt in 2003 failed. Results showed the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) winning 28.8 percent of the vote in the state, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) 30.2 percent and the reformed communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) 16.8 percent. SPD leader Kurt Beck said in berlin on Monday (September 18): "The Social Democrats in Berlin and Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania have shown that the demand for them to form a government is there, even in times like this, with people feeling uncertainty and hard decisions underway. This is a very important point for Social Democracy in all of Germany." German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the social democrat and socialist party coalition had been reduced to a very small majority. "The CDU is ready to take responsibility and is convinced Mecklenburg Western Pomerania needs a strong and stable government that can handle the problems," she added. Udo Pastoers, a watchmaker who leads the NPD in Mecklenburg- Vorpommern and praised aspects of Hitler's policies on German television after the vote, was triumphant at his party's results, saying: "We will make life hard for the coalition in the Schwerin parliament using our - in my opinion exciting - strategy. The citizens will wake up in time for the next state election and will not want to see those red-red (coalition) people in parliament again." In a separate election in the German capital and city-state of Berlin, the SPD under popular Mayor Klaus Wowereit remained the largest party at 30.8 percent. The result should allow Wowereit -- who won admirers in 2001 by outing himself with the words "I'm gay and that's a good thing" -- to continue to rule alongside the PDS or opt for a new coalition with the environmentalist Greens. His victory came despite what critics say was a failure during his first term to tackle Berlin's crippling 60 billion euro debt-load and jobless rate of over 17 percent. Even though it fell short of the five percent threshold needed for Berlin's state parliament, the NPD won enough votes to gain seats in four of the city's 12 local councils.

ITN Source | September 19, 2006

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