He was thinking back and forth, making a pro-and-contra list, talking to confidants and his family. In the end, says Winfried Kretschmann, the decisive vote came from his wife: "Do it again," she said. And so sits the Baden-Württemberg Minister President on this Thursday morning dissolved and still tanned from holiday before the assembled state press in Stuttgart and proclaimed: "So I'll throw my hat back in the ring."
The only green head of government in Germany is applying for another term of office. He justified this with sentences that give an outlook on the election campaign 2021 in the southwest: "Stability in change, that's ultimately the reason why I believe, why I should do it again." He wanted to provide orientation and govern with "experience and prudence," says Kretschmann.
He is "still curious" and has "enough passion" for the task. And: "The policy is empirically nothing bound to age." A future grandfather? The term does not like the green. "I already had a problem with the state father," says Kretschmann. He will be almost 73 years old at the time of the election in the spring of 2021.
Kretschmann's decision was meanwhile expected, in the Green Party and outside. After all, he had little choice but to compete again. Too much of the green party in the southwest hangs on its top man, a plan B did not exist. And despite occasional hints of frustration and the failure of the Jamaica negotiations in Berlin, Kretschmann did not seem to be tired of his job. Polls regularly make him the most popular German Prime Minister.
Since 2011, he has governed, first with the SPD, since 2016 with the CDU. The green-black government balance, however, is mau. In Schulrankings, the land of the tinkerers and thinkers finally slumped, and the congested infrastructure on roads and rails was hardly able to improve the Greens. And in the coalition, it's always cracking. Whether diesel driving bans, climate policy or police law: The ideological rifts between green and black are still deep.
While ZF is being tried on the working level, Kretschmann tries to make the CDU small as a junior partner by occupying her subjects. He calls the Greens an economic party, promotes the dialects or stylizes himself into the ideal type of the modern conservative. Legendary is his saying, he prayed every day for Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Presidential Government Style
Kretschmann maintains his presidential style of government. At press conferences he sometimes holds small proseminars in philosophy. He likes to take care of the big lines, preferring to talk about right-wing populism, creation or Europe rather than lack of teachers and police departments. It is not unusual for the prime minister to lack day-to-day political knowledge.
Since he is apt that he can resort to governing on a lush staff, which is no second green politician available. In the political competition one blasphemes already about "supervised governance" and waits for Kretschmann shows signs of weakness.
Kretschmann is undisputed among the country's greens, though not necessarily loved. Partisans occasionally accuse the head of government internally, he hunts too often before the CDU and cuddles too much with Daimler and Co. Because Kretschmann but as a front man guarantees mandates, posts and resources, keep the critics quiet. The once so belligerent Greens have become in the country to the Prime Minister election club.
DPA
Kretschmann, Autobosse (May 2017): Too close to Daimler and Co.?
The lasting strength of the party can hardly be explained without the overarching figure of Kretschmann. He is the only remaining founding member in the front row, after 40 years in the state parliament a solitaire. Kretschmann came to power only late when the protest against Stuttgart 21 reached its peak and a nuclear plant crashed in Fukushima.
He first ruled with an almost equal SPD. But the Social Democrats could not benefit from the alliance. While Kretschmann at the beginning of his term after 58 years of CDU government in the country could still profile as a fighter against black encrustations, he is now missing a political project beyond the power.
In his letter to the citizens, with which he explained the renewed candidacy, Kretschmann mentioned a bunch of challenges: the climate change, the digital revolution or the endangered biodiversity. Let's appeal: "Let us defend liberal democracy with all our might and strengthen the cohesion of society." Proven positions, which Kretschmann has occupied for some time, give hardly any new impulses.
No green successor in sight
Some potential successors are now out of the race. The former head of the city of Freiburg Dieter Salomon? Surprisingly lost the mayoral election in 2018. The Tubinger Boris Palmer? Not portable. Cem Özdemir? Will now be group leader in the Bundestag. It would most likely be the green party chairman Andreas Schwarz.
Thomas Niedermueller / DPA
CDU challenger Susanne Eisenmann: "No one else expected"
Kretschmann's re-election is not a matter of course. His counter-candidate is the martial arts minister Susanne Eisenmann (CDU). She had "never reckoned with another opponent," Eisenmann says. She looks forward to a "fair and in the tough competition" Eisenmann. And: "Nobody has leased the office in a democracy."
Eisenmann already brought a limitation of the Prime Minister's term to ten years after the example of Markus Söders into conversation. The demand should remind of how long Kretschmann has been there.
Meanwhile, his advisors will do their utmost not to make him look old. Kretschmann raved about California Governor Jerry Brown, with whom he agreed to a national partnership in 2018 following mutual visits. The Democrat, born in 1938, still ruled the US state in the southwest at the proud age of 81. However, since the beginning of the year Brown is retired: He was no longer allowed to compete.
