LEIPZIG, Germany – It was a typical campaign stop for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder ahead of three crucial state elections this month: a cacophony of boos, catcalls and shrill whistles, signs reading “Schroeder must go!” and an egg thrown from the crowd that just missed splattering his crisp dark suit.
As a group of teenagers chanted protest songs outside the Leipzig hall where Schroeder spoke testily over the din, one of his supporters, Otto Reinhard, summed up the situation for the German leader and his Social Democrats: “It looks bad.”
At weekly protests across the nation and in raucous disruptions of campaign rallies, Germans have been punishing Schroeder this summer for new laws that scale back jobless benefits, leaving his party’s outlook bleak as a series of state elections start today in the small western state of Saarland. That’s a troubling sign for the German leader as he prepares for a re-election bid in two years.
Saarland, where polls show only about 30 percent support for Schroeder’s party, is a prelude to two bigger prizes – the Sept. 19 ballots in the eastern states of Brandenburg and Saxony.
Anger against reforms meant to revive Germany’s lagging economy is rawest in the former communist east, where legions of people feel they never benefited from the arrival of capitalism and fear they will be disproportionately affected by the cuts. Nostalgia for the days when the dictatorship assured full employment and welfare benefits is running high in the region, and far-right parties are picking up protest votes.
Schroeder’s spike in popularity for opposing the U.S.-led war in Iraq, which helped him win re-election two years ago, has long since faded. Nowadays, he’s battling to ease the burden of social programs and highly regulated labor markets, identified by economists as a big brake on Europe’s largest economy – along with the continued, massive cost of subsidizing the formerly communist east.
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