Anti-NATO Leftist Wins in W. German State Election

Oskar Lafontaine, a charismatic anti-NATO leftist, led the Social Democrats to a stunning victory in Saarland state elections Sunday by easily defeating Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democrats, who had held power in the state since 1955.

The 41-year old firebrand mayor of Saarbruecken based his campaign on local economic issues and will become prime minister of the smallest of West Germany’s 11 states. Still, his victory is certain to strengthen the Social Democrats’ left wing nationally.

However, the party’s victory in the state was offset in West Berlin, where moderate Christian Democratic Mayor Eberhard Diepgen easily defeated Social Democratic challenger Hans Apel, a former defense minister.

The elections also boosted the declining fortunes of the small Free Democratic Party, a junior partner in the Kohl coalition government, while the environmentalist, anti-establishment Greens suffered a setback.

The Free Democrats, who had lost representation in six of the 11 state legislatures by falling below the 5% minimum, won 10% of the votes in the Saarland, according to unofficial returns. That was up from 6.9% in the 1980 election and was their best showing since 1960. The Greens received only 2.5%, a drop of four-tenths of a percent from 1980.

In Berlin, an ally of the Greens, the Alternative List, got 10.5%, according to computer projections. The Free Democrats received 8.2%.

The Social Democrats, with 49.2% of the vote, won 27 seats in the 51-seat Saarland Parliament. The Christian Democrats won 19 seats with 37.3% of the vote, while the remaining five seats went to the Free Democrats.

The Christian Democratic-Free Democratic coalition won 65 seats in the West Berlin Parliament. The Social Democrats got 40 and the Alternative List 14.

In the Saarland, Lafontaine, stressing economic issues, called for nationalization of the region’s ailing steel industry and for programs to reduce the local 14% unemployment rate, which is 3.5% above the national average.

Lafontaine vaulted into the national limelight in the early 1980s through his outspoken opposition both to the deployment of U.S. nuclear missiles in West Germany and to West German membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Sunday’s results run directly against efforts by the Social Democratic leadership to rebuild the party’s fortunes by rekindling its appeal to the country’s moderate center.

The Social Democrats’ alliance with radical anti-nuclear groups during the 1983 missile debate tarnished their image among mainstream German voters, analysts believe.

In recent weeks, party leader Willy Brandt has even talked openly of possible future cooperation with Kohl’s Christian Democrats.

However, the magnitude of Lafontaine’s victory is certain to make any such strategy more difficult. One of Lafontaine’s Cabinet ministers will be Jo Leinen, a key organizer of the West German anti-nuclear movement.

The elections were also the first state-level polls in more than a year and, as such, were viewed as an important test of public support for Kohl’s ruling center-right coalition.

Political analysts tended to agree that the mixed results left the chancellor unscathed and carried far greater significance for the future of the Social Democrats.