The Greens have a hat trick, with the party's first ever directly elected mayor of a major city. With 52.9% of the vote, Fritz Kuhn, a 57-year-old linguist from Bad Mergentheim will take over from the CDU's Wolfgang Schuster in January 2013.
Over the weekend we received the great news that the German Greens of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen have won the election for mayor of Stuttgart, the capital city of the third largest state in Germany, Baden-Württemberg.
The Greens saw their vote soar to first place in the city's 2009 local elections, with 25.3% of the vote, partially due to the party's opposition to the controversial Stuttgart 21 redesign of the city's main train station. They achieved another remarkable result in seeing Winfried Kretschmann elected as first Green Minister President of a German state after the 2011 Lander election.
Now they have a hat trick, with the party's first ever directly elected mayor of a major city. With 52.9% of the vote, Fritz Kuhn, a 57-year-old linguist from Bad Mergentheim will take over from the CDU's Wolfgang Schuster in January 2013. Mr Kuhn led the Baden-Württemberg Landtag group from 1984 to 1988 and from 1992 to 2000, was Chairman of the National Party from 2000 to 2002 and Chairman of the Parliamentary Group 2005 to 2009.
The citizens in Stuttgart wanted a change. With his campaign, his ideas for the future of the city and his personality, Fritz Kuhn was able to convince the people of Stuttgart to trust him with their vote. His platform emphasises greater public participation, a cosmopolitan Stuttgart and sustainable growth through ecological modernization. As the new mayor, he wants to fight for more day-care centres, good schools and affordable housing in the region. He plans to be a mayor for the whole city.
