A Green revolution

摘要

From their birth in 1979 as a protest group formed by a bunch of bearded ideologues, Germany's Greens have come a long way. On March 27th they ousted Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats from the government of Baden-Wurttem- berg, a state that the cdu had run for almost 60 years. This is bad news not just for Germany's other political parties, but also possibly for Germany itself-unless power makes the Greens a little more pragmatic. For Mrs Merkel, the defeat in Baden-Wuerttemberg is a painful blow, but not a terminal one. Although she is running into some criticism inside the cdu, she faces no serious challengers to her leadership. She will surely stay as chancellor until the next federal election, which is due by September 2013, and she may well remain even after that.