Online reports – Politics – Green cell division with shrill background noise

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“Become a shaky party”: former party colleagues Maag, Graf

Despite the divisive Wiedemann – the Basel-Landschaft Greens have reason to reflect

From Peter Knechtli

DOn March 18, the Green politician from Liestal, Esther Maag, was fasting and meditating in the mountains of Mallorca when she emailed some of the leading Greens in the distant Basel area a message of withdrawal: “After careful consideration,” she had decided “not to run for the National Council so that I can use my strengths and resources for productive entrepreneurial tasks.

GThree weeks later, Esther Maag sat at a table with the leading figures of the rival Green party around Jürg Wiedemann to announce her latest task: her candidacy for the National Council on the list of the “Green Independents”. The youngest Green party in the Basel area had only been founded a few days ago and had obviously given the 51-year-olds, who are always up for spontaneous action, new impetus.

FFor the Greens, who had been riding a wave of apparent success until the district council elections in February, this announcement was another blow: first they lost their most talented ego-trip artist, Wiedemann, through expulsion from the party, then they changed sides with Esther Maag, an exponent who ended her career in the “Green Baselland” party after twelve years as district councillor, but disappeared from the political scene in 2008.

“Journalists experienced the eco-fighters
as a kind of closed society.

IIn the spring elections, in which the former district president attempted to make a comeback by running in the Waldenburg constituency, she performed disappointingly. But until recently she remained an identification figure for the Green Party, which, after Isaac Reber successfully jumped into government four years ago, became a shrinking parliamentary force overnight: In February it lost four of twelve seats, and after Wiedemann's exclusion and Regina Werthmüller's departure, the Green Party faction has just six members, one seat above the quorum.

DThe decline to the status of limited importance is not only due to the autonomous rage with which Wiedemann provoked his exclusion. It is also the result of fatal complacency. It is not enough to prove the green efficiency in parliament by means of a record number of interpellations, postulates and motions, as it is said to have been above averagely successful. The devotedly cultivated management of advances has neither the necessary effect beyond the walls of parliament nor is it able to meet the expectations of the green electorate: the ecological key theme, local anchoring and activity – also while the legislature, and not just during the election campaign –, originality and freshness.

IThe Greens were simply no longer visible to the public in their role as a governing party. Or they became the spearhead of the unsuccessful supporters of a cantonal merger – after a few years earlier, of all people, figurehead Esther Maag had called for a regional reform in northwestern Switzerland. Journalists experienced the eco-warriors as a closed artistic society that, because of its insistence on political correctness, apparently did not consider it necessary to ask public questions on its own behalf or to make transparent even a hint of intra-party tensions regarding the role of the party leadership or the eco-political abstinence of its government councilor Isaac Reber.

DThe security director, who is praised within the administration and the government as a pleasant person and whose work cannot be faulted, cannot be spared one central accusation. It is not enough to claim the green government during the election campaign and then for four years – obviously tolerated by the party leadership and the grassroots – to pursue a policy that does not show any trace of a green impulse. Governing does not mean continuing party politics, but governing also does not mean handing over your political credo in the anteroom. With all due respect to the principle of collegiality, the party political attitude was evident in Sabine Pegoraro (FDP), Anton Lauber (CVP), Thomas Weber (SVP) and even Urs Wüthrich (SP).

DThe former Sissach “Stächpalme” members are strongly advised to grow a few thorns in his side in his second term, which remind him of his original political relationship. Reber strives to appear as a team player across party lines, and with his fairly successful re-election he has gained points with the conservatives and increased acceptance among the people, but at the same time has diluted his party's profile. If the candidate's reputation in office is no longer noticeable, then the government mandate can also be awarded by the state chancellery to a football manager who is oriented towards the common good.

So it can happen quickly: the Baselbieter Greens have barely achieved established status when they have become a shaky party. They are absolutely dependent on their list partner SP, but for reasons of vote they cannot completely spurn the Wiedemann party, which is hated by their comrades, as long as the alliance negotiations are ongoing. The dissident party is muttering behind closed doors that the Greens' management must resign.

DThe nervousness in the Green Party leadership is palpable. Group leader Klaus Kirchmayr, the dominant voice of the Green Party since Reber's election, has continued to attract attention. The conflict has become a matter for the leaders: we are finally hearing the opinion of party leader Florence Brenzikofer.

“The star of organic farmer Maya Graf
has faded a bit.”

IThere is a lot at stake in this election year and in the foreseeable future. First and foremost, it is about the re-election of Maya Graf as a member of the National Council, who suddenly no longer seems to be a sure-fire success as she did in previous years. The star of the 53-year-old organic farmer has faded somewhat since she became President of the National Council in 2012/13, and the current green cell division, accompanied by shrill tones, is not exactly adding to its brilliance.

DThis has a direct impact on the ambitions of potential successors to the throne, who are in the starting blocks as successors to the National Council with great hope. During the next term of office, Maya Graf must officially declare her aspirations for the Basel-Landschaft Council of States seat. However, it is no longer certain that bourgeois candidates will have no chance against Graf when SP Council of States member Claude Janiak (66) steps down one day. But before the happy successor can take place, the main actress of the documentary film “Mais im Bundeshaus” must first win the National Council election in the autumn.

Die prospects for this are no longer unclouded since Mais has been ruling the Green camp. The trigger was Jürg Wiedemann with his solo runs in education policy and election strategy, such as the support of the FDP government council candidate Monica Gschwind with his own campaign – only on the same day that the Greens launched their election campaign media campaign.

Biedemann seems ambivalent to me, some have already called him an “unguided rocket”: relentlessly driven by his own educational interests and ambitions, difficult to integrate into the parliamentary group, with a tendency towards coquetry. He repeatedly tried to shift his de facto role as spiritus rector to his 22-year-old personal assistant and former student Saskia Olsson – for example, by asking her at the last media conference, amid discreet laughter from the journalists: “Can I say something too?” ” But there is the other one.

MAs with the clandestine establishment of his parallel party, atheist Wiedemann proceeds systematically, although or precisely because he says he is good at low-hierarchy and informal politics. The way he formally forced his expulsion from the party and even showed understanding for serious accusations from the Green nomenklatura without even countering with an accusation, the way he announced his plans to found his party and change faction bit by bit, can only be the result of a sophisticated master plan.

“Three green parties
The Basel region cannot endure this in the long run.”

DThe question remains how strong the following of the currently most mentioned Basel-Land politician is. The sheer number of personnel of the avowed “Green Independents” is probably relatively small. But the loosely connected supporters of the “Strong School Baselland” and the self-declared number of 2,000 addresses should represent a logistical and financial backing that should not be underestimated, which cannot leave the Greens completely unaffected, as left-wing analysts assume, seemingly unimpressed by a voter share of just “one or two percent”.

BIt is not yet possible to say whether he will be one of the winners or losers on election day. Too many political alliances or natural disasters can change the political climate by October, the green party landscape is too entangled in demarcation rituals, and the dynamics that Wiedemann will fuel with his maneuvers are too unpredictable.

DThree green parties cannot support Basel-Landschaft in the long term. But where are they headed? Will the Green Independents merge with the Green Liberals – or vice versa? Will Wiedemann one day succeed Martin Bäumle? Or will there one day be a major reconciliation between the dissidents and the Greens, and a merger initiative for their own benefit?

DNothing can be predicted in time, but nothing can be ruled out either. The only thing that is certain is that none of the parties not involved in the Green rift have any reason to be angry: sooner or later they too will be caught up in the eruptions.

Report from December 1993 about the then Baselbieter Green Party row

13 April 2015

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