Now the PDS have already put out their own statement in English, which appears to be a document in its own right and not a translation of the earlier statement.
Chris Burford
London ___________________________________ http://www.pds-online.de/international/dokumente/englisch/9910/berlin.htm
PDS International
Information on the results of the elections to the Berlin City Parliament and the Berlin Borough Councils on 10 October, 1999
PDS National Executive (October 1999)
With the voting in Berlin a successful election year is coming to a close with a remarkable success for the PDS. During this year the party has been considerably strengthened.
The German capital is the only federal state of the FRG where since unification East and West are meeting directly. 60 % of the electorate live in the former West, 40 % in the former East of the city. Its complicated history, the memory of the Berlin Wall standing here till 1989 are still present in Berlin politics and are purposefully kept alive by the parties of the Right. Berlin today has one of the highest unemployment rates of all German lander. The rift between the rich and the poor in the city is growing deeper. Besides, the governing parties - the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD) are presently pushing through an administrative restructuring. From the year 2001 on the now 23 city boroughs will merge into 12. The city parliament has been reduced from 150 to 130 seats.
The PDS is one of the winners of these elections. It received 17.7 % of the vote. In comparison with the 1995 elections this means an increase of 3.1 %. In the East of the city where the PDS is the strongest force it succeeded in raising its share by another 3.1 % to 39.4 %. Like 1995 the PDS won nearly all East Berlin constituencies - 30 of 32. In 4 of the 11 East Berlin boroughs it reached an absolute majority. By this result the voters demonstrated their appreciation of the committed work of the PDS mayors in 5 boroughs, its city councillors and strong groups of deputies in the East of Berlin. They clearly disproved the allegation that by engaging in government work the PDS will „lose its magic“. In the West of the city the party doubled its share on a low level from 2.1 to 4.3 %.
The Berlin election result means for the PDS an important step towards building an all-German left socialist party. On 10 October there were also elections of the municipal assemblies, the borough councils of Berlin. As on the initiative of the PDS a lowering of the entrance barrier into these bodies from 5 to 3 % has been fought through, the party for the first time succeeded in entering 8 of the 12 borough councils in former West Berlin.. The PDS was supported above all in those places where people feel socially, politically and culturally estranged or discriminated by the policies of the Berlin Senate, the old and new federal governments. The PDS is now present in 19 of the 23 boroughs of Berlin. As the councils this time have been elected in view of the forthcoming borough merger already, from the year 2001 on the majority in 7 of the 12 new boroughs will be hold by the CDU, in 5 by the PDS.
The turnout fell by 2.7 % to a new low of 65.9 %. The PDS as the only parliamentary party was able to increase its vote in absolute terms and mobilise the support of former non- voters. Like in recent voting in the lander of Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony the PDS has been accepted by the electorate as the party of peace and social justice which is fighting against walls between East and West as well as between above and below, between people of German and foreign origin.
In these last lander elections of this year the Social Democrats were not able to stop their series of defeats. In Berlin they reached the historic low of 22.7 % of the vote. Compared with their already catastrophic 1995 result they were reduced by another 0.6 %. They lost voters to the CDU and the PDS, among them many workers. By this the voters once more expressed their refusal of the Red-Green federal government’s present political course. At the same time they obviously wanted to punish the SPD for continuously giving up social democratic aims and values in two successive periods of coalition government with the CDU in Berlin. The fact that the SPD in its former stronghold of Berlin where at the time of Willy Brandt it reached absolute majorities of over 60 % did not win a single constituency tells much about the profile of their leading figures in this city.
The CDU with 40.8 % of the vote became again the strongest party. It increased its share by 3.4 %. This is the highest ever result since the war - slightly more than the 1990 figure of 40.4 %. It reached it by a mixture of old frontier-city mentality and pragmatic urban politics. The Christian Democrats again won 44 of the 46 constituencies in former West Berlin plus one more in the East of the city. Much of their increase was due to former SPD supporters. In absolute terms they suffered a slight loss of voters. The CDU offered the SPD again the role of a junior partner in another coalition government.
The Greens did not succeed in bringing their descent of this year to a halt even in their stronghold of Berlin. Suffering the biggest loss of 3.3 % they received a mere 9.9 % of the vote. Over a third of their former supporters went over to SPD, PDS and the non-voters. This result was caused by their disappointing role in the federal government but also by the recent fierce fighting around the leadership and the future profile of the party.
The Free Democrats received 2.2 %, thus missing for the second time entrance into the Berlin City Parliament. This puts into question the very existence of the party.
The neo-nazi Republicans which got 2.7 % will not be in parliament either. But after having been voted out in 1995 from all West Berlin borough councils they now managed to return to 6 of the 23 bodies on this level. This shows how urgent a closer co-operation of all democratic forces is to fight their influence. The PDS has proposed this already.
These elections have once more demonstrated that the political landscape of the German capital is still divided. The very different electoral results and political climate in East and West is no minor problem for the PDS. However, its electoral result is regarded as one more signal of a slow but steady coming together of the two parts of the city. Developing modern social competence gives the PDS the chance to further strengthen its positions in the East of Germany and becoming step by step a political force of the Left acting in the whole of the country.