SPD. (CDU is Christian Democrats.)
Think the German Greens, except without the corruption and scandals.
Huh!?
NA - New Alliance the Tax Cut Party par excellence
For the record I note that party founder Naser Khadir has been mentioned on ET before: February 2006 (posing as representative of the silent majority of Danish Muslims in the cartoons controversy), again (discussion on whether he'd take Pia's place), May 2007 (party founding), and again (tax cuts). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
S - the Social Democrats. Think the German SDU. SPD. (CDU is Christian Democrats.)
S - the Social Democrats. Think the German SDU.
Of course. My bad.
Think the German Greens, except without the corruption and scandals. Huh!?
The Greens had a fairly major scandal blow up in their faces just after the last German election vis-a-vis unregistered financial support and American torture prisons. SF has never been part of a government coalition, and they don't have any rich friends, so they have never had those problems.
For the record I note that party founder Naser Khadir has been mentioned on ET before: February 2006 (posing as representative of the silent majority of Danish Muslims in the cartoons controversy),
This is largely where he's believed to have achieved the popularity necessary to start up a new party. He was the only politician who didn't make a total arse of himself at the time.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Hm. Maybe I fail to remember another one, but the three-four scandals involving inappropiate money and the Greens: the bonus miles affair, the two affairs involving PR adviser Hunzinger, and the visa affair all predate the 2005 elections.
Of these the visa affair was most serious, but that involved failure to address corruption at the visa issuing offices of the foreign ministry rather than money taken by Green politicians (and the scandal was staked by the CDU with a faint whiff of xenophobia, considering that the decree that opened the way for this corruption was created to fast-track some acute cases, say someone's urgent need for hospital treatment).
From the context, I suspect you mean the Hunzinger-Fischer affair, about a cheque for €10 thousand in 1998. This affair was created by Hunzinger himself, who claimed in a 2005 interview that this was fee paid to soon-to-be foreign minister Fischer personally for a talk before industry leaders, while the Greens declared that it was booked as a normal party donation. The truth is probably halway, at any rate, note that Hunzinger is close to the CDU and has earlier been sentenced for giving false testimony.
For scale, note that almost all donations to the German Greens come from the public office holding members of the party itself.
I agree that the other issue, whether and how much foreign minister Fischer knew of American torture prisons (more precisely: the kidnapping and torture of Germany residents), is more serious. But I note that the questions now more concentrate on the then interior minister Schily and the then leader of Schröder's chancellery, current foreign minister Steinmeier. Also, this is more a Fischer issue than a Greens issue, as the Greens participated actively in pushing for clearing up the cases (Masri, Kurnaz). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
