Meet Berlin's mayor - a champagne-quaffing, Lurex-loving partygoer who has the chancellorship of Germany in his sights
Forget Adidas, Budweiser and McDonald's. The true winner of the World Cup was not a cor porate sponsor, not sinister Sepp Blatter, nor even an unshaven Gallic goal-scorer. It was a tall, chubby man with soft hands who fancies himself as the next Social Democratic chancellor of Germany.
Klaus Wowereit is the mayor of Berlin and, as such, was an essential presence at the World Cup final in the German capital. Kitted out in a German Pride T-shirt, he did more than squat in the VIP box. He worked the hundreds of thousands of fans in front of the Brandenburg Gate, pressing the flesh as if they were voters. Indeed, many were just that - and Wowereit, Wowi for short, is standing for re-election in Berlin on 17 September. Despite presiding over an all-but-bankrupt city, he seems sure to win again.
What could happen next was set out for me on a paper napkin at Nico's, Wowi's favourite Greek restaurant: "2007, Wowi becomes deputy chairman of the Social Democrats," scrawled one of his friends from local council days. "Early 2008, challenges Kurt Beck [the present SPD leader]. Late 2008, he wins nomination to be official challenger to Angela Merkel." My informant nodded in the direction of the empty table usually occupied by Wowi and his boyfriend, the neurosurgeon Jörn Kubicki. "If that all comes to pass, Europe will die of shock."
For sure. If fortune favours the 52-year-old politician, Germany will gain a leader with a re markable profile. An open homosexual with a passion for partying, he was once snapped drinking champagne out of the red stilettoed shoe of an ambassador's wife. The city teeters on the verge of financial collapse, debates whether to turn off fountains, close down libraries and raise kindergarten fees, but Wowi finds time to address the annual congress of rubber and leather fetishists. He has argued that Berlin has to define itself as an open and tolerant city, and that it is his bounden duty to welcome men in gimp masks and Lurex. Berliners are not wholly convinced, nor do they buy into the Wowereit slogan that the city is "poor but sexy". Wowereit seems to be marketing Berlin as a decadent metropolis, to make it internationally attractive for curious tourists rather than tackle its basic problems: its run-down schools, its striking doctors and desperate lack of industrial investment.
In the past month, there was another opportunity for Wowi to pursue his policy of bread and circuses. On 15 July, the Love Parade - perhaps the most vulgar event in Europe - brought 1.2 million ravers to the ancient heart of Prussia, in the annual, Ecstasy-fuelled fornication under the spreading chestnut trees of the Tiergarten Park. None of this seems to equip Wowereit to lead Germany, yet increasingly he is being talked about as the shining white hope of the Social Democrats. In part, this is because the competition is so thin.
Beck, the current leader of the SPD and premier of Rhineland-Palatinate, is a stubborn, bearish figure, reluctant to talk candidly about the party's many problems. His role is to help Merkel's Christian Democrats implement market reforms while heading off a revolt from the grass roots of the SPD. VAT is programmed to rise steeply next year, as are contributions to health insurance and pensions. The mood will turn sour - and Beck's credibility will melt away. Only those Social Democrats outside central government will be able to lay claim to personal popularity. That means Wowi.
Berlin has often been a platform for national careers. The Christian Democrat mayor Richard von Weizsäcker became president of Germany. The Social Democrat mayor Willy Brandt became chancellor. Brandt is the model for Wowereit. Born the illegitimate son of a shop assistant, and unpopular with many Germans because he spent the war in Norway fighting against the Nazis, Brandt showed that it was possible to succeed despite having a unconventional political biography.
Others have demonstrated this simple truth. Joschka Fischer, a high-school drop-out who beat up policemen, became a respected foreign minister; Gerhard Schröder divorced his third wife just ahead of an election. Even Merkel, an East German Protestant divorcee, broke the mould. Wowereit is thus counting on his frank acknowledgement of his homosexuality to establish him in the national consciousness as a man of courage. It certainly took nerve for him to stand up in the Berlin parliament in 2001 and say: "Ich bin schwul, und das ist auch gut so" - "I'm gay, and that's just fine". It was a defining moment for a working-class boy who had spent much of his political career in the closet, a frequenter of dark rooms and steam baths well outside his constituency.
Klaus was raised by his mother, who worked in a Berlin laundry. The youngest of five children, he was the only one to go to university. He was mocked for his lack of sporty zeal - now he plays golf and belongs to a fashionable gym - which he countered with a tart turn of phrase. From the age of 18, politics replaced many of the rituals of family life. In the Tempelhof district he became a local councillor, and for the best part of 15 years (no sign there of a future life in the fast lane of politics) he learned how to horse-trade over late-night drinks. That is where he learned that the left was an infinitely elastic concept in Germany. Today, his city government is a coalition between the Social Democrats and the ex-communist Party of Democratic Socialism. Subtly, he has made pussy cats out of these hard-left allies.
In Berlin at least, to be gay is not a handicap in politics, though many politically minded homosexuals prefer behind-the-scenes courtier roles. For Wowereit, it equipped him with two networks: the Tempelhof team, which has been strongly promoted under his tutelage, and the more discreet web woven by sexual identity.
It is interesting how, in recent years, Europe's mayors have clustered around the issue of homo sexuality. The mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, is openly gay; Ken Livingstone is sometimes spoken of as an honorary gay man; the mayor of Hamburg, Ole von Beust, is part of the pink axis. The mayors of Warsaw and Moscow, meanwhile, protest loudly about what they call "unnatural practices". The political point is that issues of inclusion, of minority protection, have to be settled nowadays first and foremost at a communal level. If you believe in an open society, that is where you start.
Wowereit could not be elected as chancellor purely on a gay proselytising platform: anti- homosexual prejudice is too deeply embedded in the German provinces. The tide is turning his way, however: the sudden revival of a modern, outward-looking German patriotism has made it possible to forge a new-look Social Democratic ethos that celebrates the nation while also encouraging non-native Germans and other minorities to consider themselves a full part of society. The multicultural policies of Gerhard Schröder's Social Democratic/Green national government were stigmatised, especially after 11 September 2001, as being somehow destructive of the German identity. The carnival spirit of the World Cup seems to have turned that back, removing some of the edge from the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the past year.
Klaus Wowereit is surfing on this new wave. "To be German now means to be in posses- sion of multiple identities," says one of Wowi's Tempelhof gang. "That's what the World Cup showed, and that can only benefit a man like Klaus. He's a patriot, a Berliner, a good cook, a gay, a partygoer, a decision-maker - und das ist auch gut so."
Roger Boyes is Berlin correspondent for the Times.
It takes all sorts to be mayor
Edi Rama
Tirana, Albania
An artist who is striving to lighten the post-communist gloom. His first move was to repaint the grey concrete blocks with bright patterns. He's also recorded a hip-hop track praising his city.
Andrée Boucher
Quebec, Canada
During this 69-year-old's election campaign last year, she preferred inviting voters round to her house to spending money on posters. Wore a $3,000 dress and red ballet shoes on a visit to Paris.
Stuart Drummond
Hartlepool
The monkey-suited mascot for Hartlepool FC until he ran for mayor as a publicity stunt in 2002, offering free bananas to schoolchildren. He won, and is now serving a second term.
Mayoral profiles by Daniel Trilling
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
