Schroder deflated by poll setback
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Your support makes all the difference.THERE WAS a new spring in Helmut Kohl's step, and an air of despondency hung over his opponents yesterday as politicians in Bonn digested the implications of Sunday night's conservative triumph in Bavaria.
Final results issued yesterday showed that, rather than gaining up to 4 percentage points as predicted, the Social Democrats had lost votes to the Christian Social Union in the elections to the Bavarian assembly. With the help of Gerhard Schroder's misguided campaigning, their result was 1 per cent lower than four years ago, when the national party was in a shambles.
Mr Schroder, who was looking forward to moving into the chancellery in two weeks' time, could not conceal his disappointment. "I don't need to underline that the Bavarian elections did not fulfil our hopes," he said.
Chancellor Kohl was visibly relieved. "We are full of fighting spirit and willing to fight for every vote," he said. "The general election has not been decided, whatever the polls say."
The polls are saying: three point advantage for the Social Democrats. But it has become a noticeable trend that in all but one regional elections - in Mr Schroder's Lower Saxony earlier this year - the pollsters overestimated the SPD's final score by 4 or 5 per cent.
The left can take comfort from the confirmation of the Greens as the third biggest party in the country, replacing Mr Kohl's allies, the Free Democrats. They vanished without trace in the Bavarian poll. If the Free Democrats fail to clear the 5-per-cent hurdle to the Bundestag on 27 September, Mr Kohl's days as Chancellor are over, no matter how well his own party does.
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