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State election landslide hits Schröder
via Al Guardian - EFLBen Aris - Monday September 6, 2004 The German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, suffered a setback yesterday 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 MÃŒller, 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 Schröder 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% of the votes, a gain of two percentage points on the last election in 1999. Mr Schröder's Social Democrats polled 30.8%, a loss of 14 percentage points. The Greens and Free Democrats both just crossed the 5% barrier for seats in the state parliament, but the far-right National Democratic party, which came from nowhere to gain 4% of votes, failed to win a seat. ...more... I'll happily leave the analysis of who's on first, second, third, to the pros... I'll only offer that it couldn't happen to a more deserving prick. Posted by: .com 2004-09-06 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=42493 |