- State elections in the former East Germany on Sunday
are expected to see a resurgence of the far right.
-
- Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats are
facing
heavy losses, as voters express their anger at high unemployment and
welfare
reforms.
-
- In both Saxony and Brandenburg, far right parties are
expected to gain more than the 5% they need to win seats.
-
- This reflects widespread disillusion in the former East
Germany over the way reunification has been handled.
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- East Germans still receive lower wages, benefits, and
pensions than their cousins in the West, and almost one in five is out
of work.
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- Mass protests
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- The BBC's correspondent Ray Furlong says the
"blossoming
landscapes" promised by former Chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1990 have
simply not materialised.
-
- The vote will also be a referendum on Chancellor
Schroeder's
social reforms, he says.
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- Germany is trying to cut back its welfare state in the
face of a decreasing birth rate and ageing population.
-
- There have been protests on the streets of the east
drawing
tens of thousands of demonstrators.
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- They echo the resistance in France and Italy to economic
reforms designed to modernise and kick-start the economy, our correspondent
says.
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- The discontent is expected to play into the hands of
the National Democratic Party (NPD) - compared by the government to the
early Nazi party - which could take nearly 10% in Saxony.
-
- The far-right German People's Union (DVU) was looking
at winning about 6% in Brandenburg, according to opinion polls.
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- The Party of Democratic Socialism - political descendants
of the communists who ruled East Germany - could take most votes in
Brandenburg,
and second place in Saxony, the polls say.
-
- If the polls are proved right, the results would
represent
the latest in a series of electoral routs for Mr Schroeder's party, two
years before the next national poll is due in September 2006.
-
- Observers have said gains by the far right could damage
Germany's image abroad.
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- © BBC MMIV
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- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3669974.stm
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