Germany:
Regional elections a black spot for Social Democrats

Four regional (Landtag) elections during September have seen massive 
swings away from the ruling Social Democrats and Greens. Many voters have 
turned back to the Christian Democrats, the long-time ruling party in 
western Germany, while others, especially in the east, have turned to the 
PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism, formerly the Socialist Unity Party of 
the GDR).

In fact, the PDS — only a week after scoring a very good result in the 
Landtag elections in the German state of Brandenburg — on September 12 for 
the first time scored a double success in both East and West Germany.

The results of the Landtag elections in the East German state of Thuringia 
and the municipal elections in the West German state of North Rhine-
Westphalia were — each in its own way — a breakthrough for the party.

In Thuringia, the PDS for the first time came in second place, behind the 
reactionary Christian Democrats (CDU) and in front of the Social Democrats. 
It received 21.4 percent of the vote (an increase of almost five percent) 
and 20 out of 88 seats.

A week later, in another East German state, Saxony, the PDS did even 
better, securing twice as many votes as the Social Democrats.

Once again the Social Democrat vote collapsed (to only ten percent) and the 
PDS again came in second after the CDU.

Of all the parties present in the Bundestag (federal parliament), the PDS 
is the only one which has increased its total number of voters.

In Thuringia, and again in Saxony, the PDS for the first time received more 
votes than the Social Democrats and Greens — the parties of the federal 
government coalition — together. 

The PDS vote is now over 20 percent in every East German lander (region). 
Its profile as the party of social justice and the representative of East 
German interests is clearly firmly established.

Only a year ago the Social Democrats and the Greens were riding high with 
the "Red Green" victory in the federal elections of September 1998.

In Thuringia this time, the Social Democrats only achieved 18.5 percent of 
the vote and 18 seats, an 11 percent drop on the previous Lander election. 
More than a third of their voters deserted the party.

The Greens made no impact, gaining only two percent of the vote in both 
Thuringia and Saxony. The Greens now have as little political weight in 
East Germany as the Social Democrats' former parliamentary allies the Free 
Democrats, who mustered only one percent of the votes.

The main cause of this devastating result for the Social Democrats and the 
Greens is the neo-liberal (economic rationalist) course of the Social 
Democrats-Greens Federal Government under Chancellor Schroeder.

The Greens however blamed the low voter turnout (just under 60 percent) 
which they said indicated a lack of support for the democratic system on 
the part of East Germans.

The neo-nazi DVU got 3.3 percent of the vote in Thuringia.

The abandoning of any social justice program by the Social Democrats-Greens 
Federal Government has given the Christian Democrats the chance to present 
themselves in a demagogic way as the real fighters for the interests of the 
socially deprived (including the economically disadvantaged East Germans).

This has led many disaffected voters to turn to the Christian Democrats 
giving them 51 percent of the vote in Thuringia and 57 percent in Saxony. 
The CDU now has an absolute majority in both state administrations.

The other really significant breakthrough came in the municipal elections 
in the West German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the biggest of 
all German lander and a Social Democrat bulwark since 1945.

For the first time, the PDS succeeded in winning seats (48 all told) in a 
considerable number of cities and counties of a federal state in West 
Germany.

They included large centres like Duisburg, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Essen, 
Gelsenkirchen, Oberhausen, Wuppertal and Bonn. This is a tripling of the 
overall number of seats ever won by the party in West Germany.

The Social Democrats received only 34 percent of the vote, losing their 
previous big majorities in the councils of such big cities as Dusseldorf, 
Cologne, Essen, Duisburg and Dortmund.

The Greens got seven percent. The Christian Democrats got 50.3 percent and 
became for the first time the strongest party.

But as the PDS vote grows, the Social Democrats and Greens are becoming 
weaker and drifting more and more to the right. The chances of developing a 
parliamentary bloc with them against neo-liberalism are diminishing.

Back to index page