ABSTRACT

One of the most important issues of Green policy is the relationship of the party to the traditional parties and especially to the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Petra Kelly’s criticism was directed primarily at Otto Schily, her colleague in the Greens’ Bundestag caucus. The general identity of the potential Green voters with those of the SPD was also confirmed by the election statistics published by the Federal Office of Statistics in Wiesbaden. The initial reaction within the Green Party laid the defeat to the refusal to join a coalition government and to Lafontaine’s personal charisma. The initial reaction within the Green Party laid the defeat to the refusal to join a coalition government and to Lafontaine’s personal charisma. The SPD’s success in the May 12, 1985, elections in North-rhine-Westphalia, in which it achieved an absolute majority, was to some extent at the expense of the Greens.