Berlin - Two politicians seen as the preferred candidates of the German Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, said yesterday they would run for leadership positions in the Greens, junior partners in Berlin's centre-left coalition. Mr Fischer's endorsement of Ms Renate Kunast and Mr Fritz Kuhn for the jobs of joint heads of the party board is controversial as some Greens see it as a covert attempt by Mr Fischer, the party's highest-profile member, to take control himself.
A moderate accused by some in the party of having watered down its ecologist and pacifist ideals, Mr Fischer is banned under party rules from running for one of the positions himself because he holds government office.