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| Europe |
| Neo-Nazi surge in German poll awakens bitter memories |
| 2004-09-20 |
| Date: September 21st 2004 (Many in Germany have no learned anything from their brutal past and this news proves it.) By Philip Blenkinsop in Dresden The far right has made startling gains in regional elections in Germany as former communists made advances around Berlin, but parties of the centre clung to power with reduced support. ('Former' Communists, 'Former' Nazis look to be only a uniform alteration in today's 'Fatherland'. After the war the best Communists in East Germany were formerly fanatical Nazis during the war.) The anti-immigrant Nationalist Democratic Party (NPD) won 9 per cent of the vote in Saxony, almost equal to the vote for the Social Democrats of the Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder. The Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) took 28 per cent of the vote in Brandenburg, its best ever showing in a state election. Eastern German resentment at high unemployment and welfare cuts undermined support for Mr Schroder's Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the main opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Whereas the CDU has profited from past discontent with Mr Schroder, it too was punished this time for its support for pro-business reforms. The CDU lost its absolute majority in industrialised Saxony. |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |