The beginning of the end began on the evening of Sept. 18, when the first exit polls from Germany's federal elections were announced. It was clear Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's governing coalition of Social Democrats and Alliance 90/Green Party would be booted out of office. It was also clear the Greens would end up as the weakest faction of the five groups sitting in the Bundestag (lower house of parliament).

The 8.1 percent the Greens ended up getting, however, were more than some had expected - the Greens, it seemed, were not held responsible for high unemployment and economic stagnation, the most visible setbacks in seven years of the alliance's leadership.

Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister and one of the country's most popular politicians, saved the party from losing even more votes, observers say. Fischer, a brilliant campaigner, toured the country in a Green Party bus in the weeks ahead of elections.

In the days after the vote, as Germany stumbled into political uncertainty due to the inconclusive election results, the Greens climbed back on top for a while: Angela Merkel's conservatives wooed their services for a coalition, but after initial talks it was soon clear the conservatives and the Greens could not team up.

"Our topical differences are too great to overcome," party head Reinhard Buetikofer said last week. After talks failed, Fischer, 57, rocked his fellow Greens by resigning from his leadership post.

"I want back the freedom that I gave up 20 years ago for power," he said last week after he announced his return to the back benches.

"Fischer's exit is a tough break for the Greens," party expert Oskar Niedermayer Wednesday told United Press International. "Fischer defined the outward appearance of the party. His party will have a difficult time closing the hole his exit leaves behind."

On Tuesday, the Greens elected a new party leadership to fill that gap: The party chose Consumer Affairs Minister Renate Kuenast, who immediately resigned her federal office upon being elected, and Fritz Kuhn, one of the Greens' chief strategists, to lead the party and revive its political success of the last two decades.

Born out of anti-war and ecological movements in the early 1980s, the Greens gave voice to a group of Germans who felt detached from the policies pushed by the SPD and the CDU.

When it comes to party politics, Fischer's loss is not as dramatic, Niedermayer said. Since taking power, the foreign minister has led the ecological and pacifist party base through some tough tests: In 1999, he forced his party colleagues into approving the deployment of German armed forces to Kosovo.

Fischer made quite a few enemies inside his party: One of his colleagues blasted him with a red paint bomb at a party event, damaging his ear drum. Observers say Fischer has stretched his party since in power and moved it away from its revolutionary beginnings, when party members entered the Bundestag with flower pots in their hands. Fischer, a former street-fighting student revolutionary, took office in shabby jeans and white Nike sneakers. But the Greens have transformed.

"They're voters have grown up with them, they are now middle-aged and they have moved up in society. The Greens are no longer the 'cereal party' of the 1980s," Niedermayer, a political scientist at Berlin's Free University, said. "It's the party with maybe the richest voters. They have become a party of new bourgeoisie."

Entangled between the new Left Party, a union of the former East German Communists and western German SPD dissidents, and the pro-market, neo-conservative Free Democrats, the Greens will have a tough time not being crushed.

"The new leadership has the difficult job to clearly define the Greens in parliamentary opposition," he said. "It's a question whether the Greens will move to the camp of the social welfare state or more to the middle?"

In remarks after his election, Kuhn, the party's economy and fiscal expert, said the Greens would work for more economic efficiency, jobs and social justice in the reforms ahead.

Niedermayer said he would advise the Greens to "stay open to all sides," and continue to appeal to a wide variety of voters, and - maybe more important - several coalition options.

A coalition with the conservative CDU seems an option for the future - in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, where the Greens are traditionally strong, that coalition has worked on local levels and was debated on the state level.

On going out, Fischer termed his successors in politics "the playback generation." It's a weakness Fischer himself has handed the party: By centralizing all power in his own hands, he pushed talented Greens to the sides of party politics. Kuenast and Kuhn in the next months will have to prove they can do more than just lip-sync.

All rights reserved. � 2005 United Press International. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by United Press International.. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of United Press International.

Related Links
TerraDaily
Search TerraDaily
Subscribe To TerraDaily Express

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only