Berlin Still Divided At The Polls

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats were quick to declare that their second-place victory in the Berlin election Sunday was an end to an electoral slide.

With his popularity at a record low, SchroederÂ's party finished second in Berlin with 22 percent of the vote, virtually unchanged from 1995. The results of this year's last major electoral test were sure to be a relief for Schroeder, whose popularity has slid since he introduced a budget that would cut cherished social programs.

But the vote may say more about enduring differences between east and west 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall than about national politics.

Divided for three decades, Berlin is the only district where former East and West Germans both are represented.

Berliners voted much the same as they last did four years ago, giving the conservative Christian Democrats a victory with 40 percent of the vote, a slight gain over the last election but still not enough to govern alone.

The former communist Party of Democratic Socialism came in third with nearly 18 percent, and the environmentalist Greens, Schroeder's junior partner in his year-old federal coalition, received 10 percent.

The results guarantee a continuation of the grand coalition of Germany's two largest parties and was viewed by most observers as a victory for Mayor Eberhard Diepgen, a Christian Democrat who won his fourth term running Germany's biggest city this time as Germany's capital.

As votes were counted Sunday night, Diepgen declared his most important role in the next five years will be to develop a common identity for Berlin, which has undergone many changes since his first term in then-West Berlin, from 1985-89.

Â"We want a modern city, but we want a city where Berliners feel good and have a clear future,Â" Diepgen said.

Narrowly defeated for re-election just before the fall of the Berlin Wall 10 years ago, Diepgen won back City Hall in new citywide elections after German reunification, profiting from the goodwill felt by many easterners toward then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

But as the nation prepares for landmark celebrations Nov. 9 marking the demise of communist East Germany, it also faces a mental divide between the reunited halves, strongly evident in the results of Sunday's vote.

In Berlin, residents in the city's western districts voted overwhelmingly for traditional parties, with 50 percent going to the Christian Democrats, 25 percent to the Social Democrats and 12 percent to the Greens. Because the west accounts for three-quarters of the vote, the trend carried the election.

But in eastern Berlin, an overwhelming 40 percent voted for the former communist Party of Democratic Socialism, which successfully pre-empted the Social Democrats' leftist ideology of social justice. That compares with 4 percent support for the Party of Democratic Socialism in the western districts, despite gains Sunday.

By Colleen Barry
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