Schroeder Sees Silver Lining After German Election Defeats

BERLIN (AFP) - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder claimed to see a silver lining after his ailing Social Democrats suffered losses in two state elections that saw a surge in support for the extreme right.
"It will give us impetus," the chancellor insisted, as Germany digested a mixed bag of results from Sunday's elections in the former communist east.
The votes in the states of Brandenburg and Saxony fulfilled forecasts that the extreme right would profit by playing on dissatisfaction with Schroeder's hard-hitting programme of economic reforms.
The neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) rocketed from a score of 1.4 percent four years ago to 9.2 percent of the votes in Saxony state, securing representation in a state parliament for the first time in 36 years.
It had been feared a backlash against the reforms would see Schroeder's SPD receive another in a long line of ballot box batterings, with two years to go before the next nationwide election in September 2006.
But with the mainstream conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) putting up a disappointing performance, the SPD was able to shed votes and still emerge as the strongest party in Brandenburg, the state surrounding Berlin.
In Saxony, the SPD recorded its lowest ever score in a state poll, according to provisional results, dropping from 10.7 percent to 9.8 percent.
However, it is likely to enter a coalition government there because the CDU, lost its absolute majority, shedding 17 points to 41.1 percent, and does not want to share power with the ex-communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), which finished second on 32.6 percent.
There is little respite for Schroeder, as his party faces another test in municipal elections Sunday in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Analysts concluded, however, that the SPD may finally have begun stemming the tide.
"For Schroeder the election results are no triumph, but they give the chancellor hope that his prospects could be on the rise once again," said an editorial in the top-selling Bild tabloid.
Financial Times Deutschland said pre-vote predictions that the SPD could even slip behind extremist parties had been proved wide of the mark.
"Two elections, two losers, and yet one of them can regard themselves as a winner. The SPD has managed to halt its free-fall. The real loser is the CDU," said the paper.
The SPD emerged with 31.9 percent of the vote in Brandenburg, down more than seven percent from its score in the 1999 elections, but enough to remain the strongest party in what is likely to be a coalition with the CDU -- which won 26.5 percent -- and possibly the PDS on 28 percent.
As well as the NPD gaining 12 seats in the 120-member state parliament of Saxony, the far-right German People's Party (DVU) increased its score in Brandenburg to 6.1 percent from 5.3 percent the last time at the polls.
Some commentators dismissed their results as protest votes that would never be repeated on a national level.
"The scores of the DVU and NPD may scare many, and there is cause for worry, but not panic," said Der Tagesspiegel. "In Germany, there is and always has been potential for extremists from the right... But they are and remain without political influence."
Meanwhile, as they have been doing for weeks, thousands of protesters took take to the streets in eastern cities again Monday evening for more rallies against Schroeder's reform programme, which will notably see generous unemployment benefits slashed from January.
Some 7,000 joined protests in Berlin, more than 1,500 in Magdeburg, and 500 in Rostock according to police, in numbers down from the previous week.