The German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, received a further humiliation at the polls yesterday when his Social Democrats (SPD) saw their vote collapse in the eastern state of Saxony. In the party's fourth electoral setback in three weeks, the SPD's share of the vote looked set to slump to just over 10 per cent - less than half the share won by the formerly communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS).
The clear winners in Saxony were the Christian Democrats who retained their overall majority in the state with almost 58 per cent. The party has governed the state since 1990 under the leadership of the hugely popular prime minister, Prof Kurt Biedenkopf, who moved to Dresden from the West in the wake of German unification.
The collapse in the SPD's vote, which fell by more than 6 per cent, was even more dramatic than most analysts predicted and prompted renewed calls for the government to change course. But the SPD's general secretary designate, Mr Franz Muentefering, reaffirmed the centre-left coalition's determination to press ahead with an unpopular package of public spending cuts.
"It is clear that the Christian Democrats have no concept of what needs to be done for the future," he said.
The SPD's coalition partners in the Greens failed to win any seats in Saxony's state parliament and the party's leader in the state, Ms Gunda Roestel, is expected to step down today from her post as one of the Greens' joint chairpersons. Mr Schroder faces a further electoral test in Berlin next month, where most SPD activists are braced for more heavy losses. The government now needs the support of opposition parties in the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, to implement its budget reform.
Yesterday's result confirms the position of the PDS as a fixed element in the political landscape of eastern Germany - where the ex-communist party's left-wing rhetoric appeals to voters who are frustrated at the persistently high level of unemployment. Easterners are twice as likely to be jobless as western Germans and voters in the region have shown a willingness to change political sides as each party in turn has failed to cut dole queues.
