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January 18: Greens Win 17 seats and 13.7% in the German Land of Hesse

On January 18th, the Greens in the German state of Hesse received 13.7% of the vote, the highest percentage ever for Greens in any German state (Land) parliamentary election (other than city-states). In the process they almost doubled their number of representatives, winning 17 seats in the 118-member Hessen parliament (Landtag), up from 9 seats and 7.5% the previous election a year before. As usual, the Greens were also the only party to elect a majority of female MPs (nine out of 17). By contrast, only 25 out of the remaining 118 from the other parties were women.

Led by charismatic party co-chair Tarek Al-Wazir, the Hesse Greens’ platform emphasized education, climate change and green energy, gender equity, confronting poverty and increasing democracy and transparency in state government.

The party’s record success came in part from its emphasis on education, helping it to broaden its appeal beyond past Green voters. On education, the Greens proposed investing more funds to increase the teacher-to-student ratio, as well as support for child-care, early education and special needs students. They also advocated a shift to more site/community-based school management. This approach had already been successful for the Greens in Hesse’s largest city, Frankfurt, where the Greens have been in a coalition with the CDU since 2006 when the Greens received 15.3% in municipal elections. The fact that the Greens were in a stable governing coalition in a city that is the seat of the European Central Bank and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the largest financial center in continental Europe, also lent credibility to the Greens on a statewide basis.

Perhaps the most popular politician in Hesse today, Al-Wazir, born in Germany the son of a German mother and a Yemeni father, joined the Greens in 1989 at age 18 and was elected to the Landtag in 1995, In 2007 he was elected co-chair of the the Hessian Greens and in 2008 appeared destined to be Hesse’s Environmental Minister, until a proposed coalition government felt apart.

In the 2008 Hessen elections, there was a virtual tie between the Social Democrats (SPD) and the ruling Christian Democrats (CDU), with the SPD receiving a mere 0.1% less of the popular vote. Given a chance to form the government, the SPD thought it had a coalition agreement to govern with the support of the Greens and the Left Party (Die Linke). Al-Wazir would have been Environmental Minister. The Greens hoped they could finally end the reign of CDU premier Roland Koch, who had repeatedly campaigned with blatantly anti-immigrant positions; and join sitting Green coalition governments in the city-states of Bremen (SPD-Green) and Hamburg (CDU-Green.)

But just as the coalition contract was about to be signed, several prominent Social Democrats refused to go along with the deal because it included the Left Party. The Left Party had formed in the previous few years through a merger of the former East German communist party (the Party of Democratic Socialism), which has expanded to western Germany, with defectors from the SPD.

As a result, when the proposed SPD/Green/Left government twice failed to get the necessary approval by the legislature, Koch remained acting Minister-President and new elections were called. This failure was the result of unparalleled ineptitude within the SPD – and the party paid a heavy price at the pools, winning less than a quarter of the vote in a state that was once its most important stronghold. As a result, Koch will continue in power at the head of a CDU/FPD government.

Despite the Greens’ gains, they are still in fourth place in Hesse behind the free-market-friendly FDP – their chief rivals. At the national level, the two parties – and also the Left Party – are competing vehemently to with very different recipes for how to address the world-wide financial melt-down, even if its effects have been much less drastic in Germany than in the US. As FDP Chair Guido Westerwelle put it, his party would “use its new power intelligently to rewrite the government's fiscal stimulus to inject more tax cuts into a package dominated by infrastructure investment.” The Left Party, by contrast, supports the CDU-SPD national government’s concept, but demands that more money be spent. The Green’ alternative is a series of targeted supports but no tax cuts and measures which promote green industry and reward green consumption.

Since much of the government’s legislation requires approval by the upper house of Parliament (the Bundesrat) which represents the Land governments, and since the ruling coalition has now lost its majority there because the Hessian government is based on support from the FDP, both the FDP and the Greens will be jockeying to try to "sell" their support for legislation in return for modification of laws in their respective favor. That situation will continue at least until next September 2009, when federal elections are to be held. CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel will face her current foreign minister, SPD leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in that race.

In the first such contest, the Greens out-jockeyed the FDP – with the Stimulus Package, approved on January. 27. The Green-backed governments in Hamburg and Bremen originally agreed to support the bill in return for support for social and environmental projects in those cities – sparking criticisms that the Greens were selling out the environment, since the package also included subsidies for buying new cars. The Greens did, however, achieve an improvement of the vehicle tax structure, reducing taxes on low-carbon-emitting cars, and raising them on gas-guzzlers. The FDP achieved nothing – i.e., no tax cuts – its “miracle cure” for all economic woes.

Hesse was the first state in Germany in which the Greens went into coalition government - back in 1985 with the SPD, with Joshcka Fischer becoming Environment and Energy Minister. Fischer's swearing in in sneakers, jeans and a sports jacket made quite a stir. That coalition lasted only until 1987, when the Greens refused to support licensing a new nuclear power plant and Fischer was fired (or resigned, according to the SPD).

Hesse was also the first state where the party’s own Realo-Fundi divide over whether to participate in coalition government with 'establishment' parties played out in the real world. The debate had gone on in earnest since late 1982 when the Greens won seats for the first time in Hesse, with 8% and 9 seats. Between 1982 and 1985 neither the SDP nor CDU had a majority and while Greens did not formally support the SPD, they 'tolerated' them, judging each issue and legislative proposal individually, while allowing them to govern. However even this approach was controversial within the Green Party, and after the choice was made in 1985 to go into coalition, the issue remained a point of internal contention. However after being out of power for four years, a second Red-Green coalition then ruled Hesse from 1991-1999.

Fischer would ultimately become the most powerful Green in Europe, serving as Germany’s Foreign Minister during the Federal Red-Green Government that ruled the nation between 1999 and 2005.

March 22: Greens Win Regional Seats in Senegal

Greens known as the Fédération Démocratique des Ecologistes du Sénégal (FEDES) won approximately 100 seats in local elections across Senegal, concentrated in the suburbs of the capital city Dakar, as well as in other regions.

Perhaps the biggest victory was that of Haidar El Ali, who was elected second vice-president on the Dakar Regional Council. The Dakar région encompasses the city of Dakar and all its suburbs along the Cape Verde Peninsula; and the Regional Council has extensive powers to manage economic development, transportation and environmental protection issues at the regional level, and to coordinate thus the actions of the communes below them. A long-time defender of the marine environment, El Ali will be Vice-President in charge of environmental affairs.

Elsewhere Papa Meissa Dieng, a Professor of International Law at Université Gaston Berger in Saint Louis and a well-known Green organizer, was elected to a position inside the mayoral office in Diurbel, a city of 100,000 about 145 kilometers east of Dakar.

March 27-29: First African Green University held in Morocco

“Can ecology save Africa?” and “What role will African Green Parties play?”

These themes brought together more than 50 regional Green representatives from Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Burundi, Niger, Mali and Guinea-Conarky to Rabat, Morocco for the First African Green University, March 27th-29th. Foreign Embassies in Morocco from Gunea Bissao and Democratic Republic of Congo were also represented.

Organized by the Morocco Greens and the Maghreb Forum. for Environment and Development, the three-day conference featured workshops on topics from climate change, good governance and democracy, to the effect of the global financial crisis on Africa.

The Green University was conceived in April 2008 as an organizing tool for African Greens, coming out of discussions at the African Greens Conference held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, immediately preceding the Global Greens Second Congress. There it was agreed that sub-regional Green Party federations would be established across Africa for the next two years, followed by an African-wide Green Congress, which has now been scheduled for March 2010 in Kenya. The Green University in Rabat was a step towards building a sub-regional federation in the north Africa.

On the day’s opening session, Fatima Alaoui, general secretary of the Moroccan Greens, shared the challenges of Green organizing in her country. The Green Party there was founded in June 1992 and is known today as Le Parti des Verts pour le Développement – the Party of Greens for Development.

In 2002 and again in 2006 the Greens submitted their party statutes and other required registration documents to become an official national party, but the Interior Ministry that handles elections refused to issue them ‘receipts’ (official recognition) in other than a few localities. In response, Green University delegates passed the following “Rabat Declaration” (see attached). If the Greens gain national party status, they hope to win seats for the first time in the 325-member Assembly of Representatives in 2012.

Others making presentations about the status of Green politics in Africa and beyond included two of Africa’s three representatives on the Global Green Coordination - Adamou Garba (Niger) and Frank Habineza (Rwanda), both whom proceeded thereafter to Tunisia in a fact-finding mission on Green parties there.

On the final day of the Green University, an panel discussion focused on the issue of chemical weapons used by the Israeii army against civilian populations and children in Gaza; and Alaoui received an award in recognition of her work in support of children there.