VOTERS in the east German state of Brandenburg overwhelmingly rejected a merger with the city state of Berlin in a referendum yesterday which underlined how deep the mental divide between east and west Germans remains.
A projection for national ZDF television indicated that in Brandenburg, one of the five new federal states created in exCommunist east Germany after unification with the west in 1990, 60 per cent of voters opposed the merger which required approval in both states to go ahead.
In the capital Berlin, 63 per cent favoured union with their surrounding, mostly agricultural, hinterland. But even there, the figures from the Electoral Research Group showed a majority against the plan in the former communist east Berlin.
Brandenburg's Social Democrat Prime Minister, Mr Manfred Stolpe, who failed to win over voters despite huge personal popularity, said many east Germans were simply tired of political upheaval, six years after unification.
"In hundreds of conversations in the last few weeks I have felt a mood that says: `The merger is a good idea but not now, please. We still haven't digested the changes of the last few years'."
Mr Stolpe had said he feared Brandenburgers were using the vote to express lingering suspicion of German unification and frustration that it had not brought the rapid prosperity they expected.
The only significant opponent of the merger was the reform communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), successor to East Germany's ruling communist party and self appointed advocate of those who feel disadvantaged by the switch to capitalism.
While Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian Democrats and the SPD rallied behind the merger plan, the PDS added another trophy to its growing list of political successes by marshalling opposition under the slogan "One unification is enough".
"This result says something about the alienation between east and west," ZDF television said.
"The completion of inner unity, which the unification treaty said this merger was supposed to serve, is still a long way away . . . A historic chance has been missed."
Apart from propounding the seemingly overwhelming economic logic of the merger, which" would have eliminated one entire state administration and ended a damaging subsidy race to attract investment, politicians also appealed to history.
Berlin Brandenburg would have become the fifth largest of 5 German federal states. Berlin has 3.5 inhabitants and Brandenburg 2.5 million.
Brandenburg was a central province in the kingdom of Prussia which was founded in 1701. Berlin belonged to Brandenburg under the kaisers (German emperors) but became a city state in 1920.
The Cold War division of Germany split Berlin into eastern and western halves in 1945 and foiled a reunification with its hinterland that was planned for 1949.
Now, commentators agree they will not be reunited for the foreseeable future.