Hamburg Vote Hands a Defeat to Kohl’s Party

The Social Democrats, defeating Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s conservative party for the third time this year, won elections Sunday in the city-state of Hamburg, official results showed.

The Social Democratic Party, or SPD, garnered 48% of the vote, giving it 61 seats in the 121-seat Hamburg Parliament--a narrow majority.

Hamburg Mayor Henning Voscherau of the Social Democratic Party easily won reelection with 48% support, compared to the 34% for Hartmut Perschau, candidate of Kohl’s Christian Democratic Union.

Perschau said “the 34% are a very bitter result for the CDU.”

The Christian Democrats’ share of the vote was down about six percentage points from the Hamburg elections four years ago, while the Social Democrats gained three points.

The Christian Democrats were projected to have given up six seats, dropping to 43.

The results reflected voter satisfaction with the city’s thriving economy. But it also at least partly mirrored a nationwide slide in Kohl’s popularity and a rise for the Social Democrats, who lost re-united Germany’s first federal elections to Kohl on Dec. 2.

Kohl got into deep trouble with the German populace by breaking a promise that tax increases would not be needed to finance German unification.

The Social Democrats won state elections in Hesse earlier this year and then ousted the Christian Democrats from the leadership of Rhineland-Palatinate, Kohl’s home state.

The Social Democrats have governed Hamburg in coalition with the liberal Free Democrats the past four years but will no longer need their partners.

Shortly after the results were announced, the Free Democratic Party turned down an SPD offer to remain in its Hamburg coalition, saying the Social Democrats should now govern alone.

SPD national business manager Karlheinz Blessing said that the results placed “a further nail in the coffin” of the CDU.