Racist campaign does not prevent German CDU election defeat

This music video is the German anti fascist song Peat Bog Soldiers (Die Moorsoldaten) (Langhoff and Esser).

According to German ARD television, today’s elections for a new regional parliament in Hesse have brought a heavy defeat for the ruling conservative party CDU.

At the previous elections, in 2003, the CDU got 48,8% of the vote, giving them an absolute majority of seats in parliament. Today, the CDU is expected to slip to 36,6%; losing the position of biggest party to the social democrat SPD. [Update: when all votes had been counted, the CDU had 36.8%; the SPD 36.7%.]

With 5% [Update: 5,1%] of the vote, the Left party is expected to get seats in the Hesse parliament for the first time ever.

ARD says:

Koch has obviously lost sympathy with the electorate with his demands for harsher punishment for juvenile delinquents and his attacks.

It is good that Koch’s racist election campaign, especially against non white young people, has not helped him; on the contrary. With young voters, Koch lost even more than the 12% average CDU loss.

Hesse update January 2009: here.