The Hindu : International : Schroeder party loses State poll

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Tuesday, Sep 07, 2004

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International

Schroeder party loses State poll

Berlin: The German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, suffered a setback on Sunday as voters in a regional election punished the Government for pushing through controversial welfare reforms that have sparked weeks of street protests. The conservative Christian Democrat (CDU) State Premier, Peter Muller, was re-elected by a landslide in the small State of Saarland on the French border. The closely watched poll was the first in a series of regional elections in which Germans are expected to make clear their discontent with the Government. Mr. Schroeder has failed to make good on election promises to cut high unemployment, and even the mild economic recovery expected this year seems to be faltering. Complete official results showed that the Christian Democrats won more than 47.5 per cent of the votes, a gain of two percentage points on the last election in 1999. Mr Schroeder's Social Democrats polled 30.8 per cent, a loss of 14 percentage points. The Greens and Free Democrats both just crossed the 5 per cent barrier for seats in the State Parliament, but the far-right National Democratic party, which came from nowhere to gain 4 per cent of votes, failed to win a seat. The SPD gubernatorial candidate, Heiko Maas, ran what was widely seen as a lacklustre campaign and could not match the popularity of Mr. Muller. —

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