'NEO-NAZIS' ROCK POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT

 

 

German party surges
in regional elections

 

NSNS Monday, September 20, 2004

BERLIN—Germany's National Democratic Party made sweeping gains in important elections in the eastern state of Saxony yesterday. With the two large mainstream parties, the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, taking a battering, the NPD received 9% of the vote, thus assuring its representation in the state parliament.

In the eastern state of Brandenburg, meanwhile, the anti-immigrant German People's Union (DVU) received 6.1% of the vote, taking six seats. For its part, the CDU slumped by almost seven percentage points in the state.

Biggest losers in Saxony were the conservative Christian Democrats, who lost their absolute majority and were expected to form a coalition with the liberal Free Democrats.

Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's SPD also suffered humiliating losses in the state, emerging only half a point ahead of the National Democrats, with 9.5 per cent of the vote. The combined losses in Saxony and Brandenburg dealt a blow to the chancellor's national coalition of Social Democrats and Greens.

The upset vote for the NPD reflected widespread discontent with the pro-immigration position of both major parties generallly, as well as with the reactionary economic and social policies of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in particular.

Last year, the German government failed on procedural grounds in its attempt to have the NPD banned. Under a proportional electoral system, the National Democrats will now take 12 seats in the regional state parliament in Dresden, just one short of Schröder's party.

Both the NPD and DVU scored especially well with younger and with unemployed voters.

The head of Germany's shadow government, meanwhile, expressed
concern. Paul Spiegel of the Central Council of Jews declared that
group's position on democracy:

"Memories of the end of the Weimar Republic are awakened. A party that produces anti-Semitic and xenophobic propaganda doesn't belong in any parliament."

The results of the elections signal a shifting political landscape in Germany, which for decades has been dominated by the two big parties, the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats, with the Free Democrats or the Greens playing a swing role.

Prior to the elections, the NPD made a pact with the DVU, under which both agreed not to run against each other in the same race. As a result, while the NPD did well in Saxony, the DVU increased its five seats in the Brandenburg parliament in Potsdam to six.