No clear lessons can be drawn from these elections. In Berlin, voters strengthened the SPD and punished the CDU, while the message of the elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was just the opposite. The PDS faced a debacle in Berlin and was slightly strengthened in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, while the extreme right celebrated a great success there, but not in Berlin. However, both Ministerpräsidenten
... [Show full abstract] successfully presented themselves as prototypes of the character of their respective Länder.