Schmidt party loses heavily

Press, 9 March 1982, Page 8

Schmidt party loses heavily

NZPA-ReuterKiel, West Germany

Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s Social Democratic Party suffered heavy losses in local government elections in West Germany's northernmost state of Schleswig-Hol-stein yesterday. Official provisional results showed that the Social Democrats’ share of the vote dropped 6 per cent from 40.51 to 34.55 per cent. The Free Democrats, the Social Democrats’ junior partners in the governing coalition in Bonn, also lost votes, slipping from 7.28 to 6.84 per cent of the poll. The Christian Democratic Union, which controls the state, increased its share of the poll from 49.18 to 50.11 per cent. The local Social Democrat leader, Guenther Jansen, attributed his party’s losses to a 5 per cent drop in the turnout compared with the election four years ago. Officials said 73.89'per cent of the 1.9 million ‘ electorate voted yestersday. The Christian Democratic State Premier (Mr Gerhard Stoltenberg) said the result would have implications on more important state elections due to be held in two other northern areas —

Lower Saxony and the city state of Hamburg — in the next three months. The Christian Democrats already control Saxony but Mr Schmidt’s Government would be in deep trouble if the Opposition won Hamburg in June. It might then secure a two-thirds majority in the Bundesrat (Upper House), which would enable it to reject Government legislation. In yesterday’s election the Social Democratic Party lost its absolute majority in the state capital of Kiel and nearly 9 per cent of its voters there, sliding from 50.34 per cent to 41.38 per cent of the poll. A new group whose unique election platform was a campaign to curb the number of foreigners in West Germany won 3.77 per cent of the Kiel vote.

Mr Schmidt has expressed concern about hostility to foreign “guest workers,” who make up 4.65 million of West Germany’s population of 60 million.

The “Greens" ecologist party took about 5 per cent of yesterday's vote, while 1.8 per cent went to the South Schleswig Voters' Association, which represents the state’s Danish minority.