Germany's state elections: Pay and punishment

Economist.com ^ | Jan 17th 2008 | The Economist print edition

[wolf78]

To judge from its state election campaigns, Germany's governing parties are flirting with recklessness.

THE blows were struck in Bavaria but the impact was felt as far away as Hesse. On December 20th a young Greek and his Turkish companion answered a pensioner who told them to stop smoking on the Munich underground by beating him up. “We have too many young foreign criminals,” responded Roland Koch (above, with Angela Merkel). Mr Koch is fighting to be re-elected for a third term as Hesse's premier. Foreign miscreants, he declared, should be deported; young ones should be taught a lesson with “warning-shot arrests”, “education camps” and stiffer sentences.

[wolf78]

State elections are next Sunday, Jan. 27. Lower Saxony is pretty much decided, (centrist) CDU prime minister (governor) Wulff has a comfortable lead in the polls. Hesse, however, is a different story, as one commentator once said: Hesse rocks. The SPD is die-hard socialist here and on the other side the ultra-conservative wing of the CDU consists mainly of Hessian members.