Schroeder's Coalition May Win Regional Election (Update1)

[bemildred]

Beb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Gerhard Schroeder's coalition of Social Democrats and Greens may win German regional elections in Schleswig-Holstein Feb. 20, as the chancellor gains support in opinion polls before next year's bid for a third term.

The two parties, which share power at both national and state level, lead the opposition Christian Democratic Union and Free Democrats by 5.5 percentage points in Germany's northernmost region, an Infratest Dimap poll for local television station NDR last week found. Two other polls by Forsa and Forschungsgruppe Wahlen gave the coalition a three-point lead.

``If the coalition wins through in Schleswig-Holstein, that will it give it momentum'' for this year's other state election in May in North Rhine-Westphalia, where the coalition parties are also trying to retain power, said Hans Joerg Hennecke, a political analyst at the University of Rostock.

Schroeder's government has narrowed the opposition's lead in nationwide opinion polls since the middle of last year. Nineteen months before the next election, Social Democrat support rose to 33 percent in the latest weekly Forsa poll from a low of 23 percent in July 2004. The Social Democrats lost all but one of the 14 European, regional and local elections held last year.

Bloomberg

[David__77]

1. Bush is the only reason there isn't a rightist gov't in Berlin.

It is only because people saw the SD's as a counterweight to US imperialism that the right didn't win.

If I were in Germany, I would support the PDS. the only truly progressive party in the country. The SD's have sold out to the new privatization dogma.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

2. I like Schroeder and wish he and the SDP well.

I agree with alot of what they have done as well as their counterweight status to *!