SPD may form government

Bonn - Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) said yesterday they might form a regional government with reformist communist support…

Bonn - Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) said yesterday they might form a regional government with reformist communist support, a move some believe could jeopardise a drive for power at September's national polls.

Co-operation with the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), successor to the communists who ruled East Germany, would stop short of coalition in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. But Chancellor Helmut Kohl, struggling in surveys, would clearly hope such contacts could undermine trust in the SPD on a national level, especially in western Germany.