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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (14332)	9/7/1999 1:18:00 PM
From: MNI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

More food, and probably not readily available in the US. Next state elections: current situation: 12 September: Thuringia. CDU, abs. maj. 19 September: Saxonia. CDU, abs. maj. 10 Oktober: Berlin. CDU-SPD great coalition, led by CDU. It is clear for all states that CDU has no chance of considerable improvements. The opposite might hold, leading to great coalitions, or loss of responsibility (esp. Thuringia). For SPD the expectations are quite dim in all states. The general assumption should be that PDS will win over SPD, with good chances in Thuringia, but also in Berlin to become second largest party. Pollsters predicted SPD at 22% in Thuringia last week. In Thuringia current Minister President Bernhard Vogel (CDU, formerly M.P. for Rheinland-Pfalz) has personal approvement ratings of 73%. Mr. Vogel BTW has a brother who is a top official of the SPD. As Vogel's party is less popular than himself, it is quite probable that there will be a CDU-SPD coalition. Claims of an impending red-red coalition are in my view irrealistic. I fear right-wingers around 8% for Thuringia, but there are good chances that right voters will split up between two parties. Saxonia has also a quite popular formerly Western M.P. K. Biedenkopf (CDU), a renowned Kohl opposer. His 58% abs. maj. is prone to be lost. However, with some votes going to a spectrum of parties that won't reach the parliament, he has a chance of winning the abs. majority in the parliament with as less as 44% of the votes. That is not safe, but in any case it has to be assumed he will stay in his job, maybe utilizing a great (CDU-SPD) coalition. Berlin is different. Here the race will be between CDU and SPD to win the bigger weight within their coalition. This campaign however is very likely to be strongly influenced by the Brandenburg and possibly the Thuringian votes and ensuing coalitions. If in either state red-red becomes reality, the Berlin SPD candidate W.Momper will lose credibility, leaving the field open for the CDU - and the PDS, that surely would gain from the success of entering any government. Eastern Berlin is a PDS stronghold anyway. In Berlin it is conceivable in this worst case scenario that CDU+SPD will have less than 50% of the total ballot. Now, for Brandenburg M.P. Stolpe has said that his 'heart beats left'. This should be assumed a tactical move to curb aspirations of the more probable coalition junior partner, CDU. However, if this row goes on until 3 October, that is as bad for Momper in Berlin as if actually a deal is struck. It will be interesting to see how well Schroeder fares in imposing partisan discipline on Stolpe during ten days from now. Stolpe will surely not make a deal before Thuringias vote next Sunday, and maybe even wait for Saxonia. If the CDU succeeds in gaining Saxonia on their own, but not in Thuringia, that could be an easy excuse for Stolpe to do the SPD-CDU conjunction although most of his local suporters think red-red. If however PDS goes strong enough in Thuringia to make the red-red coalition possible in Thuringia, CDU is out of the game there. In that case, Stolpe would have an excuse against Schroeder to follow his heart in Brandenburg, thereby tipping the internal SPD balance against Schroeder, and foresaking the SPD in prestigious Berlin. fwiw MNI.