GERMAN ELECTIONS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29621, 18 September 1961, Page 11

GERMAN ELECTIONS

(N Z.P.A -Reuter—Copyright)

BONN, September 17. West German voters will decide today whether 85-year-old Dr. Konrad Adenauer or Mr Willy Brandt, the 47-year-oid Mayor of West Berlin, is to lead the country as Chancellor for the next four years. It has been the liveliest election campaign since the war—one in which Dr. Adenauer’s Christian Democrat Party has been fighting hard to regain ground lost since the Berlin border closure on August 13. Up to that time, Dr Adenauer and his party had been coasting smoothly towards what everybody regarded as their fourth election victory under West Germany’s postwar constitution. The Berlin crisis at once

rocketed Mr Br mdt into the headlines. Long identified with the cause of Berlin. Mr Brandt and his Social Democratic Party took skilful advantage of this electoral boost with a series of unscheduled television appearances.

However, most political observers agree the Christian Democrat fortunes have begun to revive and a close election is in prospect. Public opinion polls today forecast 46 or 47 per cent, of the vote for Dr. Adenauer’s party, 38 per cent, for the Social Democrats and 11 per cent, for the minor opposition Free Democrats, who have played heavily on the hopes of entering a coalition with the Christian Democrats.