CONSTITUENT COLORS:

What's red and green and in trouble? (Judy Dempsey, MAY 25, 2005, International Herald Tribune)

[T]he Greens, which in the late 1990s seemed invincible and even set to become a permanent political fixture on the regional and federal political scene, are in a mess.

And to make matters worse, the Social Democrats are divided over running any election campaign on a red-green ticket. But so are the Greens. Each feels damaged by each other's policies. One of the Green leaders, Reinhard Buetikofer, said Tuesday: "Of course, the Greens want another red-green coalition. But we will not run a red-green campaign. We will run a Green campaign." [...]

So what's gone wrong with a political constellation that generated so much hope in trying to modernize Germany's economic and social system? "It is always difficult being the junior partner," said Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a German who leads the Green grouping in the European Parliament.

Ever since joining the Schröder government, the Greens have repeatedly made compromises or remained silent over issues that represented their core constituency. They failed to criticize the human rights record of President Vladimir Putin of Russia because Schröder had developed a close relationship with him and had won several large contracts for German companies. And they failed to block tough new immigration laws drawn up by the Social Democrat interior minister, Otto Schily.

The Greens managed, however, to secure new rights for gay couples, including approval of a partnership that falls just short of marriage. They belatedly started to speak out against Schröder's decision to back European Union plans to lift the arms embargo that had been imposed on China when it became clear the party was losing support.

The Greens had another falling-out with Schröder when they said that they would not back a new missile defense system that was intended to provide better protection for German troops involved in peacekeeping missions abroad. The Social Democrats were furious and publicly criticized the Greens in a way that exposed serious tensions in the coalition. After enormous pressure, the Greens caved in, yet, paradoxically, it was a Greens member of the government, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who led a fundamental shift in Green ideology by agreeing in the late 1990s to send foreign troops abroad.

The Greens also want social and economic changes to go much farther while the left-wing of the Social Democrats want to slow down the reforms because of rising unemployment that has eroded support for the Schroeder government. Indeed, younger and more leftist Social Democratic parliamentarians, such as Andrea Nahles, have often blamed the Greens for the growing unpopularity of her party because the Greens want further reforms.

There are other differences but the biggest is one of outlook. "The Greens, whose voters are professionals and academics, are still the party for minority rights, environmental and ecological issues for sustainable development. They jar with real existential issues such as having a job," said Fuecks. "The Greens stance has confused their voters. They will have to spell out clearly what they stand for in the coming weeks if they are to survive and if the red-green experience is to survive."

The Greens are banking on Fischer, the student protestor and first-ever Greens minister, to rescue them.

These are the fissures that Democrats face in the coming years too, because the interests of women, unions, blacks, Hispanics, and the white middle/upper middle class all diverge.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 25, 2005 7:41 AM