Kohl’s Coalition Ousts Foe in Hesse Vote

The nation’s governing coalition apparently won a significant victory Sunday in Hesse state elections, ousting the Social Democrats from power in the state for the first time since World War II.

The Christian Democrats and their allies, the Free Democrats, squeaked through with the narrowest possible majority: 56 seats in the 110-member state legislature, according to projections.

The Social Democrats, on the other hand, suffered a sharp setback, winning only 44 seats, compared to the 51 they collected in the last state elections in 1983.

The radical environmentalist party, the Greens, increased its seats from seven to 10, showing the highest relative percentage increase among all the parties.

“The Greens have won,” Iris Blaul, the party’s spokeswoman, said.

However, even if the Greens get together again with the Social Democrats, they will not be able to assemble a ruling coalition because the coalition’s combined strength would be only 54 seats.

Until February, the Greens served in the Hesse government, with Joschka Fischer holding the post of environment minister.

However, the Greens had a falling out with the Social Democrats over construction of a nuclear-fuel processing plant in the state, which stretches from the Rhine River to the East German border across central West Germany.

Nuclear Policy Disputed

The Greens’ platform calls for immediate dismantling of all nuclear power plants and related facilities, while the Social Democrats, concerned about possible unemployment, back a policy of gradually ending use of nuclear energy to generate electricity.

Commenting on the unofficial results, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl expressed deep satisfaction and said the results indicate that ordinary West German workers no longer automatically vote for the Social Democratic Party.

Kohl’s environment minister in the national government, Walter Wallmann, campaigned as the potential prime minister in Hesse state. He is expected to serve in that job when the new legislature is seated, leaving Bonn for Wiesbaden as one of the rising stars in the Christian Democratic Party.

Hans Krollmann, the Social Democratic leader in Hesse, seemed at a loss to explain his party’s poor showing. Johannes Rau, the national Social Democratic leader defeated by Kohl in elections for the Bundestag (Parliament) on Jan. 25, said simply, “We didn’t get the votes.”

The Free Democrats, who serve in the national coalition, increased their Hesse seats from eight in 1983 to nine on Sunday.

Hesse has been known in West German politics as “Red Hesse” because of its pattern of voting for the Social Democrats over the years. The state includes the West German financial capital of Frankfurt, of which Wallmann was mayor before going to Bonn.

Rau and Krollmann both said they do not attribute their party’s loss to the recent resignation of Willy Brandt as its chairman.

However, many political observers said that the public spectacle of infighting among the Social Democrats that accompanied Brandt’s departure did nothing to help the party’s image and could only hurt it at the polls.