Polls in W. Germany

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33676, 28 October 1974, Page 13

Polls in W. Germany

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter —Copyright) BONN, October 27. The five - month - old Left - Liberal Government led by the West German Chancellor (Mr Schmifdt), faced by an unprecedented economic slow-down in West Germany, is having its first test of public sentiment in two local elections today. About 11 million Germans, one quarter of the country’s electorate, are voting for new state Parliaments in Bavaria and Hesse, and although the polling has no immediate impact on the political scene in Bonn, it is widely considered as reflecting the people’s confidence in the national leadership.

Since taking over from Mr Willy Brandt last May, after the Guillaume spy affair, Mr Schmidt has succeeded in allaying much public uneasiness about a supposed drift to the Left in his policies. These fears, plus the feeling that the Brandt Government had lost its grip on internal affairs, cost the Social Democrats heavily in regional elections earlier this year, and they have been replaced by economic anxiety as unemployment and shorttime working spreads. In Bavaria, ruled since the end of the Second World War by a former Minister of Defence and Finance, Mr Franz Josef Strauss, of the Christian Social Union — the autonomous and conservative wing of the Christian Democrat Party now in opposition in Bonn — no change is expected. Neither is an upset expected in Hesse, where the Social Democrat Party has been in power for the last 25 years.

However, the two Government parties contesting in

Hesse and Bavaria have prepared themselves for losses, and the main question is: how large will these be?

At stake also are nine of the 41 seats in the Bundesrat (Upper House), which is made up of Parliamentarians from the federal republic’s 10 states. At present, the Christian Democrats control the Bundesrat by one seat, enabling them to delay bills pushed through the Bundestag (Lower House), where the coalition parties, the S.P.D. and the junior Free Democratic Party, hold a majority of 46 seats.