The World - News from May 10, 1988

Chancellor Helmut Kohl said a “dirty tricks” campaign waged by a state leader of his Christian Democratic Party was mainly to blame for the landslide victory of the opposition Social Democrats in Sunday’s election in the West German state of Schleswig-Holstein. The Social Democrats won 46 seats in the 74-member state Parliament to end 38 years of Christian Democratic rule. Kohl said the main reason was the disclosure last September that Uwe Barschel, the state’s Christian Democratic premier, had employed “dirty tricks” to smear Bjoern Engholm, the state’s Social Democratic leader. Barschel was found dead during the investigation of the scandal, an apparent suicide.