Urgent: German far-right parties gain in eastern elections

[redqueen]

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-09/20/content_1995582.htm

BERLIN, Sept. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- Germany's far-right parties recorded their best electoral results in six years on Sunday, TV exit polls said.

The National Democratic Party (NPD), a group the government has likened to Hitler's embryonic Nazis, won about 9 percent in Saxony while the far-right German People's Union (DVU) got 6 percent in Brandenburg, another eastern state. Enditem

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Is this somehow not news?

:grr:

[fob]

1. I heard it on NPR this morning and they used the same headline,

that the far-right made MAJOR gains. However, when they gave the details, they reported one RW group got 10% of the vote in one state! They also added that communist groups got 25% in one state.

My question is why wasn't the headline, Far-Left groups make MAJOR gains?

Damn librul media is killing us.

[redqueen]

2. Somehow I missed hearing that on my drive this a.m.

I heard an interview with Toni Morrison for most of my drive. :eyes:

I don't know what percentage of votes the communist groups have received in the past... so I can't compare to the jump in the votes for the far right groups.

:shrug:

[Kellanved]

8. here

The last election's results are in the brackets.
Brandenburg:
Social Democrats 31.9`% (39.3%)
Conservatives 19.4% (26.5%)
Post Communists 28% (23.3%)
Greens 3.6 %(1.9%)
Free Democrats 3.3% (1.9%)
Neo-Nazis 6.1%(5.3%)

Saxony (:-( ):

Social Democrats 9.8% (10.7%)
Conservatives 41.1% (56.9%)
Post Communists 23.6% (22.2%)
Greens 5.1 %(2.6%)
Free Democrats 5.9% (1.1%)
Neo-Nazis 9.2%(1.4%)

There is a 5% threshold in both states. And they are using the German two-vote system (i.e. district- and percentage based), so the actual composition of the assemblies will not match the percentages.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. The far left made major gains.

The Communist Party is making a comeback in the east. The far right parties made gains because of their racist stance and the fear that immigrants were taking away jobs from Germans.

Sounds kinda similar to the anti-immigrant voices here in Der Gut Alte USA.

[Aidoneus]

4. boomerang effect

of the great-liberation-that-wasn't, I would suppose.

:shrug:

[Endangered Specie]

5. So both the far right and the far left gained in this election...

Someone better fireproof the Bundestag.

[Kellanved]

6. Just in Saxony

In Brandenburg the right's gains were minimal; 60% of the voters voted left of the center.
Calling the PDS extreme left is not entirely true. The party likes the left image, but isn't really that far left when one looks at it. They are indeed the follow-up organization of the party that used to run the GDR. So they are an accepted party in the east, nothing will ever change that. Many media outlets were equating the votes for the PDS with those given to the Neo-Nazis, a move easily interpreted as a "go-ahead" for voting the Nazis :grr: .

Neither in Brandenburg nor in Saxony a single district was won by the extreme right candidate.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

7. Right, but they are over 5% so get representation right?

I thought the way the system works is that if a party gets 5% of the total vote, they are aloted a seat or seats in the parliament...which I figure is true for state parliaments.

Did the PDS get the majority vote in Brandenburg? I thought I heard that they where doing quite well therre in preelection polls?