Far right gains a wake-up call for Germany-media

BERLIN, Sep 18 (Reuters) Gains for a far-right party in a weekend regional election are a wake-up call for Germany's ruling coalition under Chancellor Angela Merkel, media said today.

The result in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a northeastern state bordering Poland, gave seats in the local parliament to the National Democratic Party (NPD), which has been likened to Hitler's early Nazis.

Newspapers said the election revealed growing frustration with the government's failure to push through reforms.

''Wake Up Grand Coalition!'' read the headline of an editorial comment in top-selling Bild daily.

''The small parties, including the skinheads in the NPD, have triumphed in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ... the coalition is a fountain of youth for parties on the political fringes.

''If the grand coalition at last agrees on a sensible set of reforms and the tedious wrangling over health reforms stops, then things will go well at the regional level.'' Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a state in which one in five citizens is without work, has provided fertile ground for the NPD, which advocates closing German borders to immigrants.

Its leaders play down Nazi responsibility for World War Two, and question the extent of the Holocaust. The NPD was accused of using thugs to bully rival parties during the campaign.

Newspapers expressed shock that a third state in the ex-communist east of Germany now had far-right representation in parliament. They said the far right was becoming part of the establishment in the east.

''It is true that far-right radicals are elected to parliaments in other European countries,'' wrote the Sueddeutsche in its editorial comment.

''Can we comfort ourselves that political perversions are not a German specialty? It would be a comfort if, after its Nazi crimes, Germany was not like a dried-out alcoholic who is again reaching for the bottle.'' The commentator said Germany could not just ''wait until the Browns peter out from their own stupidity.'' ''The NPD is militant. They speak like Nazis...they put on a front of being respectable. First they oppose high energy prices and the ''brown sauce'' follows.'' REUTERS PB SSC1329