Voters in Kohl’s Home State Kick His Party Out

Voters in German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s home state on Sunday knocked his party from power for the first time since World War II in an election seen as a referendum on the embattled chancellor’s policies.

The outcome of the election in Rhineland-Palatinate state could also cost Kohl’s Christian Democrats their slim majority in the upper chamber of the national Parliament.

The election in the southwestern state was the first major vote since Kohl’s center-right coalition won national elections in December.

Kohl has been criticized for having miscalculated the enormity of the economic problems in the former East Germany following unification last year. That has led to higher taxes in the west and worker unrest in the former Communist nation.

Final official results gave the Social Democrats 44.8% of the votes and the Christian Democrats 38.7%. The Social Democrats will take 47 of the 101 seats in the state legislature to 40 for Kohl’s party.

Kohl’s coalition partners, the Free Democrats, won 6.9% for seven seats, and the ecology-minded Greens will also get seven seats with 6.4%. Other parties captured 3.1% of the vote, including 2% for the far-right Republicans, below the 5% required to enter the state legislature.

About 74% of the 2.9 million eligible voters cast ballots.

The Greens have proposed a state coalition with the Social Democrats. Under such an arrangement, the two parties would have 54 seats. That would allow them to claim the state’s four seats in the 65-member Bundesrat, the upper chamber of Parliament, and Kohl’s party would drop to 31 seats from its majority of 35. State governments appoint the members of the Bundesrat.

The Social Democrats would have 37 seats and new political authority on some national legislation affecting the course of unification. The upper house has veto power over some laws passed by the lower house.

The Social Democrats have urged greater efforts to keep failing industries alive as the economy in the east collapses, threatening mass unemployment and social unrest.

Kohl’s control of the more-powerful lower house of Parliament was not at risk in the state election. He was able to steer legislation through Parliament even while the Social Democrats held a Bundesrat majority last year.

The state’s outgoing Christian Democratic governor, Carl-Ludwig Wagner, said local issues played some role but that voters found tax hikes and increased fees “hard to take.” Kohl has raised taxes and fees, such as telephone tolls, to help finance the immense cost of integrating eastern Germany.

Rudolf Scharping, the 43-year-old Social Democrat who will become governor, credited “massive disappointment of many people over Bonn’s policies.”