Challenge: A Green Head of Government

BlackMage

This was inspired, in some part, by the thread on the UK Greens.

So far, worldwide, Green parties have formed part of coalition governments in Germany, France, Italy, Norway and Finland (I think that's it). In some cases, they have gained quite high ministerial positions (Joschka Fischer was the Vice Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005). But, as far as I know, no Green politician has ever become the head of the executive or the legislature in any government, anywhere in the world.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with any scenario in which a politician of an internationally recognised Green party gets the top job. Preferably without killing Gerhard Schroder.
 

Steffen

BlackMage said:
. Preferably without killing Gerhard Schroder.
Click to expand...
(disappointed) ohhhhhh.

BlackMage said:
.
This was inspired, in some part, by the thread on the UK Greens.

So far, worldwide, Green parties have formed part of coalition governments in Germany, France, Italy, Norway and Finland (I think that's it). In some cases, they have gained quite high ministerial positions (Joschka Fischer was the Vice Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005). But, as far as I know, no Green politician has ever become the head of the executive or the legislature in any government, anywhere in the world.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with any scenario in which a politician of an internationally recognised Green party gets the top job.
Click to expand...
1999: The Kosovo mission starts, green ministers abstain in the cabinet.
2000: the fund raising scandal breaks the german christian democrats.
It breaks up like the italian DC.

2000: The social democrats use the diminished capability of the opposition to capitalize on weaknesses to a reform of the social security system. like IOTL in 2004, massive protests are held in hard-stricken areas in the East and in the Ruhr.
Some social democrats split from the party.
End of 2000; the Kosovo mission ends in desaster, leftist members around Heide Simonis, prime minister of Schleswig-Holstein and Heide Wieczorek-Zeul, international development minister, organise a putsch against Schröder at the party conference, deposing him as chairman.
the chancellor resigns.
The social democrats break up in a three-way split.
The Schröder loyalists and reformers have been marginalised and form the New social democratic party,
the moderate leftists are in control of the SPD, and the ultra-left have entered the green and the communist party.

The Free Democrats are locked in a struggle between Chairman Gerhart and Jürgen Möllemann who wants to aggressively go after former christian democrat voters. Their public animosity reduces their appeal to voters.

In march, 2001, new elections are hold, the two big parties are broken,

the green party comes out as second in the election.
The Bavarian Christian Social Union is strongest, but cannot form a coalition,
the greens, as the strongest party in a left social democrat, liberal democrat, green and breakaway christian democrat party led by Rita Süssmuth, hold the chancellorship.

The day after this election, Steffen leaves germany and seeks asylum in Austria.
 

BlackMage

Nice work, Steffen!

My personal best bet (which is sorta cheating, but it does say head of 'state') is in Tasmania, one of the Australian states.

March 18, 2006: Tasmanian elections. Labor loses two seats, leaving it with 12, Liberal with 8 and the Greens with 5. Labor goes into coalition with the Greens, giving Peg Putt the Deputy Premiership.
June, 2006: The coalition breaks up after a dispute over Gunns, a logging company. The Liberal Party, seeking to capitalise on coalition disunity, combines with the Greens to bring down the bill. Unable to command a majority in the House of Assembly, Premier Paul Lennon resigns.
Governor William Cox offers the Premiership to Will Hodgman, Opposition Leader and leader of the second largest block in Parliament, but during the election the Liberals campaigned on a platform of 'govern in majority or not at all'. As a result, fearing a backbench result, Hodgman declines. Having no other choice, Cox offers the Premiership to Putt, leader of the Greens, who accepts.
For a week, until Parliament sits again, the Greens are the sole governing party of Tasmania. After Parliament meets, Labor and the Liberals combine to bring down the Putt government. In the resulting confidence vote, Lennon is returned to power as leader of a Liberal-supported Labor government, and calls for fresh elections.
October: Elections are held. The Greens lose two seats due to their perceived disloyalty, and Labor gain majority government.
 

Steffen

Max Sinister said:
Well, is it true too? You can't believe everything written in the papers, or can you, "Kuschelkonservativer"?
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well, it´s the worst kept secret that Kretschmann, green faction chief, desperately wants to become a minister, and B. Palmer endorsed the christian democrat candidate in the second round of the Stgt. mayoral elections last year.


But the main reason is of course to deflate the Free Democrats. They sometimes tend to forget who is the dog and who´s the tail.

I personally hope the pro- coalition declarations which were heard in the last days from the greens will lead to inner-party turmoil.

Mwahaha.
 

Straha

Banned
In my Confederacy winsa TLs the greens(about as economically leftist as some left leaning dems and very socially liberal) are one of the 3 big parties in the US(The Other 2 are the Country Party and the Liberal Party). The Greens have elected one president who was in charge from 1997-2001..
 

Tom Veil

1. San Francisco secedes
2. George Bush, ever the careful calculator of electoral votes, reckons that California is now more likely to go Republican, so he says, "here, have Berkeley, too!" and allows the secession
3. Wait a couple years, and they'll elect a Green as President
 

Wendell

I thought about writing a Frisco secedes timeline, but that's another story....

Let's go all the way back to the year 2000.

Let's say that Gore goes after Bush on the Environment. Bush responds by going after Gore on abortion, and then maybe other issues as well. The mudslinging gets nasty. Meanwhile, butterflies have allowed Ralph Nader to bump into Pat Buchanan in Washington before the Green Party ticket in 2000 is solidified. The two men start to realize how much they agree on certain issues, and subsequently, a deal is struckbetween the two men. Buchanan won't challenge Hagelin's take-over of the Reform Party, instead opting to allign himself with Nader and his supporters. A new, shaky coalition has just formed, but it is a powerful one. The men will campaign on those issues with which they agree, and remain quiet (atleast for many audiences) on those where they differ. After a long and contentious campaign, Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan eek out a victory as President and Vice President respectively. Ralph Nader thus becomes the first Green Head of Government in the World, but only serves for about 8 months when he is impeached and removed following the September 11 attacks.
 

Hendryk

Banned
In VoCSe's WI Day of the Jackal, in which the POD was the assassination of de Gaulle in 1962, I offered a possible chain of events leading to Daniel Cohn-Bendit being elected for the French presidency in 2002. That would have been fun.
 
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