A green government

I pretty amazing thing happened a few weeks ago in the state in which I live. As far as I know, and as far as I've been told, I am now living under the first ever Green state government, right here in Baden Württemberg. One can see a pretty cool graphic of the results here.

The greens were the second strongest party in the end and, with the presumed coalition with the third placed social democrats, will be eligible to choose the state premier. Obviously what happened in Fukushima played a role in motivating people to vote, but I would argue that none of the parties have really radically changed their platform over the time in which I have been here, rather, the people have become more motivated about the issues that matter to them or have reassesed their priorities and changed their minds.

Of course, the crassness of the violence displayed by the police in the protests agains the Stuttgart 21 plans certainly gave people pause to think about what kind of disrespectful leaders were in charge of the government in the state, but to go out on a limb and cast this election off as an opportunity well exploited by the greens is really a bridge too far.

I for one an excited, but I'm keeping my expectations in check, I think it is good that the Greens have been given a slim majority in their coalition, it could well have all gone to their heads if they had received a resounding ultimatum from the voting public. I should think that under the circumstances we have here, a smooth transition from over 60 years of conservative government into a Green government can be made without leaving a bitter taste in the mouth of too many folks.

I do look forward to seeing how the greens, with this mandate will go about implementing the Green economy, the rest of the political issues here (nuclear of course is obvious) are still a little bit foreign to me, or at least I feel like I have little stakeholdership in them. Hence the excitement to see exactly what changes will occur.