Just a bit more infos to Chris Burford's post:
The Saxony election results were the worst showing of the SPD in any post-war election. Worse than anyone expected. That the extreme right did not manage to get any significant protest votes is a big relief, as opposed to Brandenburg. But according to Infratest dimap, 9 percent of the "youth voters" voted the neonazi NPD, while only 7 percent of the youth age category voted the SPD.
The SPD seems to have lost substantial votes to the PDS - about twice as many as they lost to the CDU, which gained votes from the whole left, not just the SPD. Here are these and more factoids from yesterday's Neues Deutschland:
Nach einer ersten Analyse des Meinungsfoschungsinstituts Infratest dimap gab die SPD etwa 41000 Wähler an die PDS ab. 22000 Waehler, die vor fuenf Jahen noch ein Kreuz bei der SPD gemacht hatten, gaben diesmal der CDU ihre Stimme. Die CDU gewann den Wahlforschern zufolge Stimmen aus dem gesamten linken Lager. Von der SPD wechselten 22000 Waehler zur Union, von der PDS 21000. Buendnis 90/Die Gruene verloren 12000 Stimmen and die CDU. Bei den Jungwaehlern rangiert die SPD mit sieben Prozent noch hinter der rechstextremistischen NPD, die auf neuen Prozent kam. (Neues Deutschland, 20 Sept., 1999 p.1)
The decline in voter turnout I do think is rather disconcerting. In Thuringia it was still possible to blame on the glorious late summer weekend.
The PDS has the best campaign posters in Berlin. They spoofed an ad campaign for a new private electricity company, Yello Strom (gelb, gut, guenstig). The PDS posters read "rot, radikal, ruestig" w/the meanwhile obligatory url on a little yellow-black electricity thunderbolt icon (http://www.pds-online.de ).
Anita