GERMANY’S GREEN Party took on the political establishment 30 years ago; now they are taking on the capital.
Opinion polls give the Greens 30 per cent support in Berlin, making them the most popular politicians in town. Renate Künast, a senior Green and former agriculture minister in Gerhard Schröder’s government, hopes to build on that lead and run for mayor of the city-state in next year’s election.
With her distinctive dyed buzz-cut, the diminutive 54- year-old is a popular and familiar figure around the city where she began her political career in 1985. Her party allies hope she is the right candidate to shake up the Berlin political scene, which has never managed to shed its provincial reputation from West Berlin days.
For nine years the German capital has been ruled by a left-wing “red-red” coalition, a Social Democrat (SPD) alliance headed by Mayor Klaus Wowereit with the Left Party. Polls suggest that coalition is beginning to run out of steam, with the SPD down to just 26 per cent, four points behind the Greens, and the Left Party on 15 per cent.
Mr Wowereit still has his supporters, but has fallen out of favour with many locals as cutbacks to reduce a €70 billion deficit begin to bite.
The Greens, meanwhile, have gone from strength to strength in the capital, particularly in former working class eastern neighbourhoods now in the hands of well-off, eco-conscious middle class young families from western Germany.
“The Berlin Greens were already stronger than the SPD in the European elections,” said Manfred Güllner of the Forsa polling agency.
“The (opposition) Christian Democrats (CDU) are very weak and are doing nothing about it, so that all speaks in favour of the Greens and Ms Künast.”
Berlin is no one-off: around the country the Green Party, founded in 1980, is enjoying a revival in fortunes as classic Green issues like nuclear energy and citizen protest return to the headlines. The party has backed the massive campaign against Stuttgart 21, a multi-billion project to rebuild the main train station in the state capital of Baden-Württemberg.
Standing on the side of the protesters is likely to stand to the Greens when voters in the south-western state go to the polls next March. Analysts predict that local Green Party leader Winfried Kretschmar, a 62-year-old former communist and, later, biology teacher, may even beat Renate Künast into the history books as Germany’s first Green governor.
The Greens are saying nothing, neither about the candidacy of Ms Künast nor their strong poll showing. Their modesty is the result of bitter experience: the Greens are notorious for shining in opinion polls but not in election polls. Next year gives the party two solid chances to break that curse.