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About before yesterday's state parliament elections in Germany int'l media reported yesterday following (tomorrow I'll write some more details about the final results):

Far right wins seats in Germany (al-Jazeera)

A far-right party compared to the early Nazis by the German government has won seats in a regional parliament, helped by a weak economy and anger at Angela Merkel's ruling coalition.

Results showed the National Party of Germany (NPD), which advocates closing German borders to immigrants, won 7.2 per cent of the vote in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a northeastern state on the Baltic Sea which borders Poland.

The result would allow the NPD to enter the regional assembly, making Mecklenburg-Vorpommern the third state in the former communist east with far-right representation.

The result alarmed mainstream politicians and Jewish groups, who called on the federal government to renew its bid to ban the party after a previous attempt failed.

Dieter Graumann, vice-president of the Central Council for Jews in Germany, said: "The government must look for ways to impose a ban."

Narrow victory

Final results gave the Social Democrats (SPD) 30.2 per cent in Mecklenburg, down from nearly 41 per cent in the state vote in 2002. It was uncertain if they would continue their local coalition with the former communist Left Party or ally with Merkel's Christian Democrats.

Election data showed 15 per cent of 18- to 24-year olds voted for the NPD in Mecklenburg.

In a federal election exactly one year ago, Merkel won a disappointingly narrow victory over Gerhard Schroeder, her predecessor, forcing her into a coalition with his SPD party.

Many Germans had hoped her "grand coalition", with its big majorities in both houses of parliament, would be able to push through crucial reforms.

But it has been plagued by infighting and struggled to deliver promised changes to the healthcare system. Experts say this has helped boost smaller parties such as the NPD.

Weak economy

         
In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the state where Merkel has her local constituency and where she hosted George Bush for a barbecue in July, the economy is weak and nearly one in five is without work, and the jobless rate hovers above 30 per cent in some areas. Like other states in the former communist east, it has seen many leave in search of jobs.

Those conditions have provided fertile ground for the NPD, which was accused of using thugs to bully rival parties during the campaign. Its leaders have played down Nazi responsibility for the second world war and questioned the extent of the Holocaust.

Several hundred protesters gathered outside the parliament building in the Mecklenburg state capital Schwerin, waving "Nazis Out" posters on Sunday.

The federal government has compared the party to the Nazis of the 1920s and tried to ban them in the country's highest court in 2003. It failed after members of the party who testified turned out to be informants planted by the police.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/127DE884-A102-4907-8E4F-A22364A0E52C.htm

Far-right party wins seats in German election (NYT/IHT) 
  
A far-right party made further inroads in Germany's economically fragile east on Sunday, winning seats in a state election in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, a lonely land of farms and fishing villages that is the home constituency of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
 
The National Democratic Party, which openly espouses xenophobic and neo-Nazi views, was projected to win slightly more than 7 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results. That was less than analysts here had feared, but enough to clear the threshold of 5 percent for seats in the state legislature.
 
Extreme-right parties will now be represented in three of Germany's six eastern states - a trend that worries officials and underlines the divide between the country's eastern and western halves. Far-right parties have negligible support in more-prosperous western Germany.
 
"This shows the extreme right is a stable and growing force in the east, but it is not an earthquake," said Hajo Funke, a political scientist at the Free University of Berlin. "It's not a danger for our democracy."
 
The result, however, is a rebuke for Merkel and her conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union, which lost votes in Mecklenburg and fared even worse in the second of the two state legislative elections on Sunday, in Berlin. There, the popular mayor, Klaus Wowereit, led his Social Democratic Party to a comfortable victory.
 
Voters appeared to be punishing Merkel's party, 10 months after it squeaked into power in an unwieldy "grand coalition" with the Social Democrats. The Social Democrats, who govern Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, lost ground there, too, and it was not clear whether they could salvage their coalition with the Party of Democratic Socialism, the former East German Communist party.
 
Merkel, who began her political career in Mecklenburg 15 years ago, has tried to focus attention on the region, inviting President Bush in July for a visit. But the state has one of the highest unemployment rates in Germany, which makes it a breeding ground for extremism, analysts say.
 
The National Democratic Party, which the German government once tried to ban, won seats in Saxony, a similarly depressed eastern state, in 2004. Another far-right party is represented in Brandenburg, the state that surrounds Berlin.
 
"The grand coalition hasn't presented a forceful program to tackle Germany's problems," Funke said. "These parties take advantage of the frustration of those who have no chance of a social or economic future."
 
One of the few winners on Sunday was Wowereit, who was given a strong mandate as mayor of Berlin, with the choice of renewing his coalition with the Party of Democratic Socialism or forming a new one with the Greens, the largest vote-gainer since the last election, in 2001.
 
The victory may foretell a greater national role for Wowereit, a 52-year-old lawyer who has become a star in Berlin. His party-going style seems to suit his late-night town, and his disclosure before the last election that he is gay only added to his appeal. On Sunday, Wowereit appeared on stage with his partner, Jörn Kubicki, a neurosurgeon.
 
With the departure of Social Democratic leaders like Gerhard Schröder, and a lack of other rising stars, Wowereit has made his ambitions plain. "I would like to have more say that I have had in the last five years, when we had to clean up the city," he said in a recent interview with the German magazine Stern.
 
Whether he has done so is a matter of debate. Berlin is strangled by debt, a jobless rate of nearly 20 percent and a shrinking commercial base. Wowereit, who is known as Wowi, prefers to focus on its role as a cultural center and tourist magnet. Berlin, he said last year, is "poor but sexy" - a line that has become a tongue-in-cheek slogan for the city.
 
His opponent, Friedbert Pflüger, a Christian Democratic member of Parliament, tried to portray the mayor as a lightweight. But in a city that rewards flamboyance, Pflüger, an establishment politician originally from the western city of Hanover, never stood a chance.
 
"Up until now, he hasn't been a strong voice in politics on the national level," Uwe Andersen, a political scientist at Ruhr University, said of Wowereit. "He may think this result strengthens his position."
 
 FRANKFURT A far-right party made further inroads in Germany's economically fragile east on Sunday, winning seats in a state election in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, a lonely land of farms and fishing villages that is the home constituency of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
 
The National Democratic Party, which openly espouses xenophobic and neo-Nazi views, was projected to win slightly more than 7 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results. That was less than analysts here had feared, but enough to clear the threshold of 5 percent for seats in the state legislature.
 
Extreme-right parties will now be represented in three of Germany's six eastern states - a trend that worries officials and underlines the divide between the country's eastern and western halves. Far-right parties have negligible support in more-prosperous western Germany.
 
"This shows the extreme right is a stable and growing force in the east, but it is not an earthquake," said Hajo Funke, a political scientist at the Free University of Berlin. "It's not a danger for our democracy."
 
The result, however, is a rebuke for Merkel and her conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union, which lost votes in Mecklenburg and fared even worse in the second of the two state legislative elections on Sunday, in Berlin. There, the popular mayor, Klaus Wowereit, led his Social Democratic Party to a comfortable victory.
 
Voters appeared to be punishing Merkel's party, 10 months after it squeaked into power in an unwieldy "grand coalition" with the Social Democrats. The Social Democrats, who govern Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, lost ground there, too, and it was not clear whether they could salvage their coalition with the Party of Democratic Socialism, the former East German Communist party.
 
Merkel, who began her political career in Mecklenburg 15 years ago, has tried to focus attention on the region, inviting President Bush in July for a visit. But the state has one of the highest unemployment rates in Germany, which makes it a breeding ground for extremism, analysts say.
 
The National Democratic Party, which the German government once tried to ban, won seats in Saxony, a similarly depressed eastern state, in 2004. Another far-right party is represented in Brandenburg, the state that surrounds Berlin.
 
"The grand coalition hasn't presented a forceful program to tackle Germany's problems," Funke said. "These parties take advantage of the frustration of those who have no chance of a social or economic future."
 
One of the few winners on Sunday was Wowereit, who was given a strong mandate as mayor of Berlin, with the choice of renewing his coalition with the Party of Democratic Socialism or forming a new one with the Greens, the largest vote-gainer since the last election, in 2001.
 
The victory may foretell a greater national role for Wowereit, a 52-year-old lawyer who has become a star in Berlin. His party-going style seems to suit his late-night town, and his disclosure before the last election that he is gay only added to his appeal. On Sunday, Wowereit appeared on stage with his partner, Jörn Kubicki, a neurosurgeon.
 
With the departure of Social Democratic leaders like Gerhard Schröder, and a lack of other rising stars, Wowereit has made his ambitions plain. "I would like to have more say that I have had in the last five years, when we had to clean up the city," he said in a recent interview with the German magazine Stern.
 
Whether he has done so is a matter of debate. Berlin is strangled by debt, a jobless rate of nearly 20 percent and a shrinking commercial base. Wowereit, who is known as Wowi, prefers to focus on its role as a cultural center and tourist magnet. Berlin, he said last year, is "poor but sexy" - a line that has become a tongue-in-cheek slogan for the city.
 
His opponent, Friedbert Pflüger, a Christian Democratic member of Parliament, tried to portray the mayor as a lightweight. But in a city that rewards flamboyance, Pflüger, an establishment politician originally from the western city of Hanover, never stood a chance.
 
"Up until now, he hasn't been a strong voice in politics on the national level," Uwe Andersen, a political scientist at Ruhr University, said of Wowereit. "He may think this result strengthens his position."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/18/europe/web.0918germany.php

Ghosts of Nazi past (Guardian)

A regional election in Germany saw a province dip back into the darkest parts of the 
In the end, the result was as bad as everyone had feared. Germany's neo-Nazis pulled off a widely anticipated electoral coup last night, with the far-right winning 7.3 % of the vote during elections in the north east state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

The NPD comfortably exceeded the 5 % hurdle necessary to win seats. It will now sit in the state's regional assembly in Schwerin for the first time. This is the second time that the NPD has got into a regional parliament in three years, confirming fears that the party is now an established part of the political landscape, especially in Germany's depressed former communist east.

Ahead of yesterday's poll, hundreds of neo-Nazis flooded the rustic state, turning the party's stronghold town of Anklam into a neo-Nazi HQ. The tactic worked. In some Baltic villages in the east of the state, the NPD got as much as 15 % of the vote. The NPD did best where unemployment was highest. In many areas here it is more than 25 %.

This morning's German papers, reporting on the poll and yesterday's election in Berlin, gave a gloomy reaction. Der Tagesspeigel said there was no point in pretending that the NPD's voters - most of them under the age of 30 - had somehow been tricked into voting for a bunch of unashamed racists. "Whoever voted for this party, knew what they were doing," the paper said.

The Berliner Zeitung conceded that the "real winner" of yesterday's election was the NPD's leader in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Udo Pastörs. The fact that other parties treat him as a 'pariah' merely helps his cause, the paper said, adding: "Nobody had so many cameras and microphones thrust at him".

It was not clear this morning, meanwhile, what coalition would govern in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a lush Baltic region which includes Angela Merkel's seaside constituency. The Social Democrats (SPD) emerged as the biggest party with 30.2 % of the vote - but only after a night of heavy losses.

The state's SPD premier, Harald Ringstorff, now has to decide whether to continue his existing left-wing coalition with the post-communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) - or enter into a new one with the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU).

The CDU won 28.8 %; the PDS 16.8 %; and the right-wing liberal FDP party made it back into the assembly with 9.6 %.

In Berlin, the picture is a bit clearer. Berlin's popular Social Democrat mayor Klaus Wowereit was the undisputed winner of yesterday's election - winning 30.8 % of the vote in Berlin and another term as mayor. This morning's papers show him putting an affectionate arm round his partner, Jörn Kubicki.

Wowi, as Berliners call him, now has to decide whether to govern in coalition with the Greens or the PDS. The Greens did better than expected with 13.1 %.

Die Linke - as the PDS is known - had a terrible night, and saw much of their support, especially in east Berlin, evaporate. The party polled 13.4 %, almost 10 % less than during the last election in 2001.

Two trends this morning appear clear. Firstly, the neo-Nazis in Germany appear to be here to stay. Secondly, the Christian Democrats do not appear to have benefited much from the fact that their leader Angela Merkel is Germany's chancellor, and the head of a 'grand coalition' government in Berlin with the Social Democrats. Her long term ability to win elections is still in doubt.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1875278,00.html