Experience. That’s Cem Özdemir’s magic word Baden-Württemberg election campaign, which ends on Sunday. “Experience has never been more important than now,” it says on his large posters. “He can do it,” is his catchy slogan. With the subtext: CDU opponent Manuel Hagel, who is just 37 years old and has never held a ministerial office, cannot do it.

Özdemir: His career has twists and turns

Cem Özdemir is 60 years old, washed with all water and sewage, he was often celebrated, but sometimes also tarred and feathered, despised and discarded. Hardly anyone has survived as many career setbacks as he has. If you threw him out at the front, he came back in at the back.

The “Anatolian Swabian” (self-description), who was considered a problem student at school because of many errors in dictation, was the first migrant member of the Bundestag in 1994 and made history. Then, after five years in the European Parliament, he was party leader of the Green Party for ten years from 2008 to 2018 and was Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture in the Traffic Light, and in the end he was also Minister of Education.

Özdemir’s experience also has its downsides

But the experience he so conspicuously advertises also has its downsides. Özdemir has survived scandals and suffered many wounds; he has scars in his political biography. Does something like this create trust when you have overcome it and seemingly shaken it off, as Joschka Fischer recently said? Or are Özdemir’s mistakes and contradictions the basis for justified mistrust?

The fact is: The man from Stuttgart, who won his direct mandate in the Bundestag in 2021 with a record result of 40 percent, is a stand-up man, a political quick-change artist, almost indestructible. In 2002, Cem Özdemir’s career seemed to be at an abrupt end. He had tax debts and had apparently lost track of things; he was far from financially competent in his private life. He also borrowed 80,000 marks from the windy PR consultant Moritz Hunzinger – the interest rate of 5.5 percent was very favorable for him at the time.

Withdrew from the Bundestag because of the bonus mile scandal

The story was revealed, and an affair about bonus miles that he acquired for work and used privately was added. Özdemir had apparently transferred bonus miles to his parents, a friend and several times to his partner at the time instead of making the mileage credits available to the Bundestag again to finance further business trips. The monetary benefit amounted to several thousand euros. The result: He resigned as domestic policy spokesman for the Greens and withdrew from the Bundestag. It was embarrassing because he was ridiculed as a rogue and greedy user of “Özdemir Tours”.

That was a long time ago, the CDU has refrained from digging out the old stories again. But some still doubt Özdemir’s financial competence today the former savings bank director Manuel Hagel took a leap of faith. Although a federal state like Baden-Württemberg certainly cannot be run in the style of a savings bank or a Swabian housewife.

A delicate piece of theater

Cem Özdemir is capable of learning, no one will deny that. Today he would certainly no longer take part in a theater project called “Kill Möllemann!” as he did in 2002. carries. The theater provocateur Christoph Schlingensief, who died in 2010, came up with the piece; Özdemir had the task on stage of asking questions to the audience in a political quiz.

FDP politician Jürgen Möllemann, who was accused of anti-Semitism at the time, accused Özdemir of simply accepting Schlingensief’s gaffes without protest.

Özdemir himself has also received death threats

Özdemir only apologized in a Bundestag debate. Today, in a time when death threats to politicians have become almost commonplace and a right-wing extremist shot the CDU politician Walter Lübcke, such a provocative theater title would hardly be possible.

It was not a glory for Özdemir, who in this case allowed himself to be exploited by Schlingensief. He has also received threats from Erdogan fans and at times no longer felt safe with fanatical Turkish taxi drivers.

Özdemir campaigned for the legalization of cannabis as early as 2014

He always remained in the headlines. Sometimes also according to the motto: Legal, illegal, whatever. The fact that he appeared in a video on his balcony next to a hemp plant in 2014, when it was still forbidden, showed that Özdemir liked to test the limits of the rule of law.

The non-smoker said the campaign should be understood as a “gentle political statement”; every adult should be able to decide for themselves whether they want to consume cannabis. The proceedings for violating the Narcotics Act were discontinued due to insignificance.

He has long since said goodbye to the revolutionary image

Today, Özdemir prefers to support Baden wine rather than impunity for smoking weed. He visited winemakers who encouraged him to run. He has long since said goodbye to the revolutionary image; Özdemir is decidedly bourgeois.

But how real is that? And do the other Greens who have influence in Baden-Württemberg work in a similar way? This is the question asked by swing voters who can hardly find the green party emblem on Özdemir’s posters. He wants to turn the state election into a personality election, almost like mayoral elections at the local level. Because he has a clear advantage: He is significantly better known and more popular than Manuel Hagel.

Özdemir has no use for green noise. The friendly fire from the Greens in the European Parliament, who voted against the immediate implementation of the Mercosur agreement with South America, really upset him. The CDU points out at every election rally that the Greens cannot be trusted in a federal state that thrives on exports.

Hagel was attacked as a sexist; the man, who has been married to his wife Franziska for almost ten years and has three small sons, was suddenly seen as a macho man who did not respect young women and reduced them to their appearance.

The CDU accuses Özdemir of a “smear campaign”.

Özdemir cleverly avoided hitting Hagel for this, he even defended him in the TV trial and only said that Hagel would probably behave differently today. But in the CDU they think this is pure hypocrisy. There they talk about a “smear campaign”. Nobody believes that Özdemir knew nothing about the use of the video, which was circulated by Karlsruhe Green MP Zoe Mayer.

The CDU general secretary Tobias Vogt even accuses Özdemir of having “no civil decency”. Almost all communication lines between the two parties are frozen and broken. The trust is gone, and the coalition negotiations between green-black or black-green are definitely strained by this.

The election also decides Özdemir’s personal fate

If Cem Özdemir wins on Sunday, Realo will be the new superstar of the Greens, who are lacking charismatic figures after the departure of Robert Habeck and Anna-Lena Baerbock. He even hopes for the vote of his former tutor at school, who is an FDP member; without her he would never have gotten this far.

The cosmopolitan man, who would previously have loved to become Federal Foreign Minister in a Jamaica coalition, then has to become down-to-earth and root himself – that’s more than just skillful chatter. Can he do that, serve the state, even if he doesn’t move into Villa Reitzenstein? Cleverle Özdemir will surprise everyone again. Maybe also himself. “Yes, we Cem,” is his motivational saying to himself. The fact that he is reminiscent of Obama will please the man who reinvented himself in the USA after his career took a turn.