Germany's major parties Sunday saw their popularity decline in local parliament elections in the two eastern states of Sachsen and Brandenburg.

According to exit polls by German TV chancel ARD, the Christian Democratic Union(CDU)'s won 41.2 percent of votes in Sachsen as compared with 56.9 percent in 1999.

Although CDU remains the largest party in the parliament of Sachsen, it has to form a coalition state government with a small party, probably the Free democrats.

The party profiting most from CDU's loss was the far-right-wing National-democratic Party of Germany, or NPD, which gained 9.3 percent of votes, as compared with 1.4 percent five years ago.

The Party of Democratic Socialism(PDS) remains the second largest party in Sachsen with 23.4 percent of votes, while Social Democratic Party(SPD) trails in the third place (9.8 percent). Besides CDU, SPD is one of the two largest parties at the federal level and in most states.

In Brandenburg, SPD won 32.2 percent of votes as compared with 39.3 percent in 1999, while votes for CDU declined from 26.6 percent to 19.4 percent.

PDS, successor to the communist party in former East Germany, replaced CDU as the second largest party in Brandenburg, with its vote share increased from 23.3 percent 27.8 percent.

According analysis of opinion research experts, the major parties suffered their losses of votes either because the protest at planned cuts in social welfare programs or disappointment at politicians from western states. Both Sachsen and Brandenburg were part of the former East Germany.

Source: Xinhua