URL: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,436646,00.html
Letter From Berlin Far-Right Gains Expected In German State Election By David Crossland
Germany's neo-Nazi National Democratic Party is set to make strong gains in an eastern state election on Sept. 17. Nationwide, far-right extremists remains marginalized, but the NPD's regional successes are an embarrassment to Germany and a warning that xenophobia is rife in the economically depressed east.
Getty Images NPD supporters during a demonstration in the western city of Gelsenkirchen in June.
This weekend could be potentially embarrassing for Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel, as voters go to the polls in two state elections.
Opinion polls indicate the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) will get 6 percent or 7 percent, above the minimum 5 percent needed to enter the state assembly in Merkel's home state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a rural region known chiefly for its beautiful Baltic Sea coastline.
It isn't expected to get enough votes to enter the state assembly in Berlin, which is also holding a regional election on Sunday. But in both states, the NPD and its supporters have been accused of intimidating opponents and disrupting their campaign events.
The NPD -- a xenophobic populist outfit with no really support nationally in Germany -- has declared its solidarity with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after he questioned the Holocaust and said Israel should be wiped off the map. But it made international headlines in 2004 when voters elected it into the regional parliament in Saxony, another eastern state, with 9.2 percent.
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