They are the direct successors of the communists who once misgoverned East Germany for their Russian masters. Yet today's Democratic Socialists could find themselves sharing power in Berlin: in the city-state's election on Sunday, they took 23% of the vote, over twice what they won soon after it was reunified in 1990.rnThey are now eager to form a coalition with the Social Democrats, whose 30% put them ahead of the Christian Democrats in the city for the first time in 26 years. But, with a general election not a year away, Chancellor Gerhard Schroder is not keen to see his party cosying up to the heirs of the sorry regime that kept Germany-and its capital-divided for 40 years. So Klaus Wowereit, the Social Democratic acting mayor since the collapse of the city's coalition (Christian Democrat-led, with his party as junior partner), is keeping his options open.
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