Berlin Mayor Ready for Next Term -- Maybe Even Chancellorship

Wowereit -- dapper, silver-haired and affectionately known as "Wowi" to the public -- is broadly expected to secure his coalition government another five years in power on Sunday.

He looks like a shoo-in, so the more exciting question on everyone's lips is: Has Wowi also become the Social Democratic Party's (SPD) strongest contender for chancellor?

Increasingly, observers are tipping Wowereit as a potential candidate by 2014 at the latest -- although he will have to bide his time until current SPD party leader Kurt Beck leaves the stage.

The SPD has yet to recover from the identity crisis it plunged into after the departure of Gerhard Schröder. With his reputation as a successful consensus builder, Wowereit could prove to be precisely the sort of charismatic leader the party could now do with.

Broad appeal

Despite Berlin's skyrocketing debts, high unemployment figures and declining property prices, the 52-year-old mayor is a well-liked figure in Berlin. In a recent poll, almost 60 percent of Berliners said he had their support, with just over 20 percent backing his CDU challenger Friedbert Pflüger.

Along with Brandenburg's Matthias Platzeck of Brandenburg and Rhineland-Palatinate's Kurt Beck, he is among the most popular of the 16 state premiers and enjoys unusually high public recognition throughout the country for a local leader.

Wowereit is doing nothing to dispel the rumors. "I would like to have more say than I have had in the last five years," Wowi recently told Stern magazine.

To the critics, his flamboyant, party-going habits and his tendency to push Berlin's cultural strengths rather than address its depressed economy make him a light-weight politician.

"Wowereit cares more about the Love Parade than creating jobs," said Pflüger in a recent interview.

But his supporters credit him with successfully profiling Berlin as a tourist destination and one of the world's most exciting cities.

Pioneering

If he were to become chancellor it would make Wowereit the first openly gay head of state in the world.

The former lawyer came out in 2001, famously saying: "I am gay, and that's OK."

He's never shied away from breaking new ground. In 1984, at the age of 30, Klaus Wowereit was the youngest city councilor of Berlin. Then in December 1999, he became chairman of the SPD parliamentary club in the Berlin city parliament and went on to join forces with the PDS, the successor party to the East German Communist party. In once-divided Berlin, this was a brave alliance.

"There is a new political constellation in Berlin," he said. "Many hopes are pinned on it, as well as many fears. It is fiercely rejected by many, with many Berliners forced to remember their recent history. Berlin is the city which was home to the wall, a city in which families were torn apart."

But Berlin adjusted to its ruling political constellation, and grew increasingly fond of its optimistic, impeccably dressed mayor. The overwhelming success of the World Cup this summer provided a last-minute high-light to his current term, which he followed up by securing the 2009 World Championships in Athletics for Berlin. Chances are he will be the host -- if he hasn't already made the switch to the Bundestag.