BERLIN (AFP) - Germany's two main political parties wound up the losers in local elections at the weekend but Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD) have taken heart by avoiding a new rout.
"Losers to the fore in North Rhine-Westphalia," wrote the daily Tageszeitung on Monday after the SPD recorded its worst-ever score there, while the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) lost major ground from the last poll in 1999.
"The SPD records a historic low and celebrates. The CDU suffered in the local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia but it still remained the strongest party," said Der Spiegel, often a clarion of clarity, in its online edition.
At first glance it all looks simple enough. Schroeder's SPD scored 31.7 percent, according to provisional final results, down more than two percentage points from 33.9 percent last time.
The CDU won the state again with 43.4 percent but it lost almost seven percentage points from 50.3 percent five years ago.
It would be straightforward for any gambler backing the first past the post.
But the chancellor's camp feel they actually won by not losing too much because the result augurs well for elections in May to the North Rhine-Westphalia parliament which, adding to the confusion, the SPD dominates.
"It still wasn't a brilliant result. But those who thought that the race was already won by the other side were mistaken," Schroeder told reporters ahead of a meeting of party officials in Berlin.
The national chairman of the SPD, Franz Muentefering, also summed it up for the initiated. It was "not a vote that leaves us jubilant," he said, but it was a "good basis for the state elections."
"I feel more confident about it than I did six or seven weeks ago," he said.
Six or seven weeks ago, the dark memory of the SPD's worst defeat in a nationwide poll -- the European Parliament elections in June -- was fresh in Muentefering's mind.
Three weeks ago, the party scored a four-decade low in the tiny southwest state of Saarland but a week before this poll, on September 19, the SPD's veil of gloom lifted in the eastern states of Saxony and Brandenburg.
The problem has been the failure of Schroeder's federal government to reduce high unemployment or bring new life to the eurozone's biggest economy.
His controversial reform programme aimed at doing just that has only brought further public anger and voters have expressed that at the ballot boxes.
On the right-hand side of the political centre, the CDU also feel that they won in North Rhine-Westphalia on Sunday by, ... well, winning.
"It's not about beauty prizes, it's about majorities," federal opposition leader Angela Merkel told ZDF television.
State CDU party chairman Juergen Ruettgers was also defiant, in "victory". "The end of the Red-Green state government and Premier Peer Steinbrueck will come in May next year," he said.
Among the other winners were the Greens party, which scored 10.3 percent, according to the provisional final results, up three points from 1999, and the liberal Free Democrats with 6.8 percent, compared to 4.3 percent.
The far-right and far-left parties, which recorded alarming gains in eastern Germany, made virtually no impact in the polls.
For those who have had trouble following events, there's a chance to do it again in two weeks. In electoral districts where no candidate won an absolute majority, a run-off between the top two contenders will be held on October 10.