Kohl-Backed Alliance Wins E. German Vote : Elections: Victorious moderate-right coalition favors a faster pace toward reunification. Social Democrats run a distant second in first free ballot.

EAST BERLIN —  Voting freely for the first time in their history, East Germans on Sunday gave a stunning mandate to a moderate-right alliance that promised rapid unification with West Germany.

With unity the pivotal election issue, Sunday’s results can only accelerate the pace toward a single German state, a development likely to further unsettle other European countries worried about the revival of a powerful Germany.

Final results showed the three parties that make up the Alliance for Germany, backed heavily during the campaign by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democrats, winning 193 of the 400 seats in the new East German Parliament.

The alliance also supports swift implementation of a free market economy and a full currency union.

By party, the alliance’s Christian Democrats were the top vote getters, winning about 41% of the vote and 164 seats. An Alliance partner, the German Social Union, won about 6% and 25 seats while another partner, Democratic Awakening, won less than 1% but four seats.

The Social Democrats, viewed as the front-runners through much of the campaign, struggled to a distant second with about 21% of the popular vote and 87 seats. They had campaigned on a platform for a more carefully planned, measured move toward unification.

The Communists, who changed their name to the Party of Democratic Socialism, finished third with about 16% of the vote, winning 65 seats.

Turnout was 93% of the 12.2 million eligible voters.

On a bright pre-spring day when all East Germans stood a bit taller as they savored their newly won right to a free vote, Christian Democrats were jubilant at a victory celebration here.

“It’s just a crazy feeling,” summed up a 44-year-old East Berlin auto mechanic, Hans-Christian Schulz. “We’re free. We’re a free people.”

“It’s a happy moment for Germans, a moment to give thanks,” Kohl said.

Lothar de Maiziere, leader of the East German Christian Democrats and the man expected to emerge as prime minister, called the victory “an amazing surprise.”

“These results bring with them high expectations but also great responsibilities,” he added.

The election results contradicted the projections of most experts that none of the 24 parties would emerge with more than 30% to 35% of the vote.

Interviewed on West German television, De Maiziere called for the introduction of the West German deutschemark and a free market economy “as soon as possible.”

“The currency, economic and social union must be the next clear, important steps,” he said.

Kohl made similar statements to a West German television interviewer.

On Saturday, West German Economics Minister Helmut Haussmann said that monetary union could be reached as early as July.

Both De Maiziere and Kohl urged those East Germans thinking of fleeing to the West to consider the results and stay put to rebuild their country.

“My message is to stay at home,” Kohl urged. “Help in your homes and your factories to rebuild this beautiful land.”

Since the Berlin Wall fell and the inner German frontier opened last November, about 2,000 East Germans a day have emigrated to West Germany, fearful that economic and political change would come too slowly in the East and that hesitation could cost them a chance at West Germany’s material wealth.

That exodus seriously demoralized the East German population and further damaged its already struggling economy.

It has also strained West Germany’s delicate social fabric with hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Sunday’s election was advanced from its originally planned May 6 date mainly to help reduce public uncertainty and stabilize the political situation.

The newly elected government replaces a weak, multi-party, caretaker regime headed by Communist Prime Minister Hans Modrow, appointed after the collapse of East Germany’s neo-Stalinist regime late last year.

Above all, the extent of Sunday’s victory for the Christian Democrat-led alliance reflected an East German eagerness to share in the wealth and prosperity enjoyed by their Western cousins.

Kohl’s six campaign appearances drew by far the largest crowds of the campaign and, as chancellor, his promises for swift implementation of a currency union and other elements of unification seemed to carry both additional authority and credibility.

However, the size of the victory also means Kohl must now deliver on these promises to the East German people, while not saddling West Germany with excessive financial costs in an election year.

Kohl faces a West German national election in December.

The East’s victorious three-party alliance might have won a full majority if an election-eve scandal had not toppled the leader of its smallest member.

Wolfgang Schnur, head of the recently formed Democratic Awakening, was forced to resign after admitting he had been an informer for the Communist security police.

Political observers here said that despite its unexpectedly strong showing, the alliance might try to coax other parties, including possibly the Social Democrats, into a broad-based coalition in order to give greater legitimacy to the critical decisions that lie ahead.

Sunday’s election marked the first totally free vote among the nations that until last year were part of the Soviet Union’s Western empire, and it appeared to be conducted almost without incident.

Official observers from the European Community and the Council of Europe declared the election fair.

“We have the impression that the preparation and the procedure are really fair and free,” said Wolfgang Blenk, a member of Austria’s Parliament, representing the Council of Europe.

Voting was heavy throughout the country, and many seemed almost giddy with the experience.

“I’m 60 years old, and today is the first time I’ve ever really voted,” said Klaus Garers, an economist living in Potsdam, 15 miles southwest of central Berlin.

At the famous Cecilienhof retreat in Potsdam, where in August, 1945, President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin agreed on the division of Germany, a young East German tour guide talked of her vote in the election that has begun the process of reuniting Germany.

“I always wanted to deface or tear up the ballot when I voted before (in Communist one-party elections) but I never had the courage,” she said. “It felt good to vote today.”

And in the village of Lobetal, north of Berlin, former East German leader Erich Honecker was one of the few in the country who failed to vote.

A crowd of about 40 people, including some television crews, stood outside the home of a Protestant clergyman where Honecker now lives, but the man who built the Berlin Wall and ruled East Germany for the better part of two decades never appeared.

“I had hoped he’d have the courage to come out today,” said a 71-year-old music teacher named Rudolf Reinwardt. “We just wanted to remind him of his duty to vote.”

GERMANS CELEBRATE: Flags, graffiti and media hordes marked election day. A13

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