AGING GERMAN GREENS FACED WITH DISAPPOINTMENT OVER

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BERLIN 001188 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/23/2019 TAGS: GM PGOV SUBJECT: AGING GERMAN GREENS FACED WITH DISAPPOINTMENT OVER BEST RESULTS EVER REF: FRANKFURT 001583 Classified By: Political Minister Counselor George Glass for reasons 1.4 (b,d) ¶1. (SBU) Summary: The Greens will likely achieve their best federal result ever in the September 27 Bundestag election, but they are unlikely to be satisfied with Sunday's results. After the election, a fight over leadership and the future course of the party may begin in earnest. The party is facing difficulties adjusting to a five-party system in which their chances to govern are constrained by a weak Social Democratic Party (SPD) and internal resistance to coalitions with the center-right. The Greens have had to cede the position as the third largest political grouping to the Free Democratic Party (FDP),which surpassed them in the 2005 federal elections and now governs with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in many of the same states that once had SPD-Green governments. In addition, the Greens are being ideologically outflanked by the Left Party's calls for an almost immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan and the fledgling Pirate Party's advocacy of an open Internet with no government interference. Dissatisfaction with the major parties should help the Greens surpass their 2005 8.1 percent showing. End Summary. More Green at the Grass-Roots -------------- ¶2. (SBU) The Greens are in the contradictory position of increased electoral support but little prospect of federal power. They have done well -- although usually not as well as the FDP -- in recent state elections and even surpassed the Free Democrats in the June European Parliament vote with 12.1 versus 11.0 percent. They are now an established force at the local level, particularly in urban areas, and there are numerous Green mayors, including in the university towns of Freiburg, Tuebingen, and Konstanz but also in the prosperous and until now CDU-led town of Bad Homburg in Hesse. Their electorate is well-educated and well-off, and the Greens continue to pull in a strong share of younger voters. But they are part of only two (city) state governments in Bremen (with the SPD) and Hamburg (with the CDU),and their leadership admits that they have little prospect of re-entering federal power this year. Preventing Black-Yellow but Promoting What? -------------- ¶3. (SBU) In the Bundestag campaign, the Greens are finding it �A;hard to motivate their voters with no real prospect of power and are outflanked on the issues by other parties. The party's first choice remains a coalition with the SPD, but Greens leaders admit publicly the prospects for such a coalition are nil, while the FDP has definitively rejected an SPD-FDP-Greens coalition (a so-called "Jamaica coalition," which the Greens promise will "remain in the Caribbean."). The Greens themselves exclude a federal coalition with the Left Party because of its anti-EU stance and opposition to UN peacekeeping or a coalition with the CDU/CSU and FDP in which they fear they would have little weight. Indeed, the Greens use the possibility of a black-yellow government that would reverse the current phase-out of nuclear power plants and which they allege could institute what the Greens call a radical agenda of tax cuts and privatization to try to get their voters out to the polls. Thus, the party leadership is campaigning on the less-than-inspiring goal of blocking a black-yellow majority while coming in third. Greens Turn Greyer and Lose Their Punch -------------- ¶4. (SBU) The Greens campaign is also hampered by the seven years they spent in power (1998-2005),which has made the leadership more pragmatic but less appealing to the leftist protest voters and the pacifists that were once their core support. On Afghanistan, for example, Green party leaders have been critical of the Grand Coalition and particularly Defense Minister Jung while maintaining their support for the overall ISAF mission. In television debates and party appearances, the campaign duo of Juergen Trittin (who is also the party's foreign policy spokesman) and Renate Kuenast have stressed Germany's need to fulfill its international and UN obligations and dismissed as irresponsible Left Party calls for a total withdrawal. This may be responsible but is hardly popular with potential Green supporters. Trittin has continued to support the operation while criticizing the Grand Coalition's failure to move more quickly on police training and civil reconstruction, as has the rest of the Greens leadership. On September 20, the party council reaffirmed Green support for the ISAF mission while calling BERLIN 00001188 002 OF 003 for the development of an exit strategy during the upcoming parliamentary term. 80 Green Bundestag candidates have signed a petition demanding a complete withdrawal, however. ¶5. (SBU) The Greens are also facing a challenge from the Pirate Party, which is taking an even more aggressive approach than the Greens on the issue of data privacy and an unfettered Internet. Although it remains a splinter group it appeals to younger voters with the kind of clever posters and street theater-like approach that resembles the Greens in their early years. In contrast, the Greens probably are being helped by the recent controversy over the safety of nuclear power plants and the location of a reprocessing plant, which may help to energize their electoral base. A Green contact told the Embassy that even though the SPD Environment Minister has driven much of this debate, any discussion of Green issues tends to help the party's turnout. The Future of the Greens -------------- ¶6. (C) Party officials admit privately to the Embassy and to consulate officials that over the long term, the party will have to consider new coalition constellations, particularly in light of the weakness of the SPD. The party already cooperates with the Christian Democrats in the city state of Hamburg (since 2008) and has conducted informal talks with the CDU and FDP in Saarland after the August 30 state election failed to provide a majority for the CDU and FDP (see septel). The Greens also work with the CDU in several towns and cities, including in Frankfurt, where CDU mayor Petra Roth has governed for several years with the support of the Greens. ¶7. (C) The Greens leadership would clearly like to open the party up to more such cooperation and Green voters may not be averse. A recent poll shows that Green supporters actually prefer Merkel to Steinmeier as chancellor, for example. A senior Green staffer also told the Embassy that in the remote case that the Greens surpassed the FDP in the Bundestag election and could provide the CDU/CSU with a majority, an agreement could be worked out that would gain approval at a party convention. But he acknowledged that Green party activists -- precisely those people who are delegates to the party conferences -- would almost certainly and overwhelmingly oppose a Jamaica coalition with the CDU/CSU and FDP. In Saarland, the Greens party chair has also noted that a Jamaica coalition would be very unlikely to win the necessary party approval. This is partly due to the fear that the CDU/CSU and FDP could dominate the Greens too easily but it is also because of the particular enmity the party leadership feels toward FDP leader Westerwelle, who too many of them personifies the "anti-68er." ¶8. (U) In addition to new coalition possibilities, Greens officials note that a generational change is likely to occur in the next few years as the "68ers" begin to cede to a younger and generally more pragmatic group. Oezdemir, the first ethnic Turk to head a German party, represents this successor class according to a contact in the party. Greens business manager Steffi Lehmke and Greens caucus financial policy expert Gerhard Schick are considered possible future leaders. Tuebingen Green Mayor Boris Palmer, who was part of the Greens delegation that discussed a possible coalition with the CDU after the last two elections in Baden-Wuerttemberg, is a strong proponent of possible black-green cooperation. Antje Hermenauer, who has headed the Greens parliamentary caucus in Saxony since 2004 is another particularly talented politician. Comment -------------- ¶9. (C) If the Greens are faced as expected with another four years in the national opposition, the party will likely begin to consider more seriously how to free itself from its uncomfortably close ties to the SPD. Greens officials say privately that the CDU is often easier to work with than the Social Democrats, who they complain often treat the Greens arrogantly, perhaps due to the assumption that the Greens do not have a serious alternative partner. At the same time, however, the prospect of four more years of opposition is likely to be felt more immediately in the foreign policy front when the party holds its national convention in Rostock in late November. The Greens have been divided on ISAF in recent years, with the majority of the caucus voting against reauthorization in 2007 and 20008. The left wing of the party is likely to feel even more free to oppose the mission and should be expected to push in Rostock for a resolution calling for a rapid withdrawal. A Green staffer told us BERLIN 00001188 003 OF 003 recently that without a clear NATO strategy and the promise of an international conference, the leadership will find it impossible to support ISAF renewal when it comes before the Bundestag in early December. End Comment. Bio Note on Trittin -------------- ¶10. (C) Jurgen Trittin began his political career in the Communist Federation, a West German extreme-left splinter group active on university campuses, and like Roth and Kuenast, belongs to the founding generation of Greens who entered the around 1980 and are now in their mid-50s. Trittin was long an opponent of any kind of military participation and resisted Fischer's efforts to gain Green support for participation in Balkan peacekeeping. Participation in Gerhard Schroeder's Lower Saxony government as EU minister and in Schroeder's federal government as Environment Minister has made Trittin a "pragmatic leftist," and he reluctantly supported German participation in ISAF because of its UN authorization. Murphy