GERMANY: Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was faced with a fresh political headache yesterday when a Social Democrat (SPD) state premier and close political ally was forced to resign.
The chaotic departure of Ms Heide Simonis (61) from the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein may force the SPD to form a grand coalition in the state with the opposition Christian Democrats (CDU).
Ms Simonis, the only woman to ever head a German state, was humiliated on Thursday when, after four rounds of voting, she failed to muster enough support to be re-elected state premier, a position she had held since 1993.
Ms Simonis had hoped that Thursday's vote would end a month of horse-trading since state elections last month left neither her government nor opposition parties with enough support to govern.
But the vote in the state parliament in Kiel descended into chaos when an MP from the SPD or the Greens abstained from the vote, ending Ms Simonis's political career and the likelihood of an SPD-Green minority coalition tolerated by the tiny SSW party representing ethnic Danes.
"To fight against open knives is not easy but sometimes necessary in politics," said Ms Simonis in a statement yesterday. "But there are no defensive measures to deal with a treacherous stab in the back."
Chancellor Schröder said: "Simonis is a wonderful, respectable woman who has been treated in the most despicable way."
Peter Harry Carstensen, the CDU leader in Schleswig-Holstein, called for a "grand coalition" with the SPD yesterday. SPD party leaders were mulling their options: fresh elections could weaken the party's position further, but a grand coalition would leave the SPD in control of just six of Germany's 16 federal states.
"This behaviour was shabby and shakes basic confidence in the values of social democracy," said Ms Simonis yesterday, suggesting the effects of her fall could be felt far beyond the state borders.
Yesterday a new opinion poll showed support for the SPD-Green government in Berlin had fallen five percentage points to 39 per cent, hit by record 12 per cent unemployment and a political scandal in the foreign ministry.
The SPD faces a fresh challenge in next May's state election in North-Rhine Westphalia. The loss of the state, a Social Democrat heartland for decades, would be the final blow for Mr Schröder's government ahead of next year's general election.
The crisis in the north dominated the headlines throughout the day, throwing into the shadows new proposals unveiled on Thursday to stimulate the economy. The proposals, a mixture of investment and tax cuts, received a mixed media reaction.
Bild, the top-selling tabloid, welcomed the measures, but the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine predicted: "The 20 reform measures will give neither the economy nor the SPD a boost."
The left-wing Tageszeitung said the political crisis in Schleswig-Holstein had left a "devastating" impression on the Berlin government. The centre-left Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote: "The chancellor experienced within a few hours on Thursday that it's not just the chancellor that matters; things can also depend on a backbencher in a small regional parliament."