September 19, 2002	Thursday	Rajab 11, 1423

COLOGNE: Whatever the turnout in Sunday’s German general election, almost 10 per cent of the population will definitely not be going to the polls.

Germany is home to the most immigrants in Europe — 7.3 million out of a total population of some 82 million — but until recently few foreigners met the tough criteria to qualify for German citizenship and thus the right to vote.

Politicians could safely forget about the concerns of immigrant groups and even stir up anti-foreigner sentiment without worrying too much about the electoral consequences. But a quiet revolution is underway in German politics.

Since Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s centre-left government reformed archaic bloodline nationality laws in 1999 to make it easier for foreigners to gain citizenship, politicians are waking up to the need to court a growing immigrant vote.

“I am a German. I am also a person with rights,” said Metin Kalmaz who moved from Turkey to the western city of Cologne 22 years ago, but only recently gained citizenship.

Kalmaz, a 42-year-old a cook at an automobile factory, said he would be voting for Schroeder’s Social Democrats because the opposition Christian Democrats had done little for foreigners.

“In this election we will vote SPD. The CDU has many problems with foreigners. They keep their distance from us, they are not interested in our problems,” Kalmaz said at an SPD reception in central Cologne for newly naturalised immigrants.

“First generation arrivals always lived in ghettos, but it is good that the second and third generations have German passports so that our problems are heard in parliament.”

Kalmaz is typical of the almost half a million Turks who have gained German citizenship. Surveys show that about two-thirds of ethnic Turks support the SPD with around 15 per cent backing their junior coalition partners, the Greens, and about 10 per cent favouring the conservative opposition.

FIGHT FOR ACCEPTANCE: Lale Akgun, a psychologist who came to Germany from Turkey with her parents 40 years ago this month, wants to give a voice to Kalmaz’s problems. An SPD candidate for a central Cologne district, the 48-year-old is likely to be the only member of the new German parliament of Turkish origin.

“I hope I will put down a marker to say we also belong and we are also part of the population,” she said. “We must make sure that immigrants get better education and training so they qualify for good jobs. We must fight to be accepted.”

Susana dos Santos Herrmann, 34, was born in Germany to Portuguese “guest workers”, is married to a German and has lived in the country almost all her life but only took up citizenship two and half years ago. She urges others to do likewise.

“A democratic society that has a rising proportion of the population that has no right to vote cannot be sustainable because problems cannot be dealt with on a political level,” said Hermann, a public relations consultant and SPD member.

“We haven’t yet achieved what we would have wished but some things have moved. The most important change has been that immigration and integration are discussed,” she said.

“Four years ago it was ignored and the conservatives were still saying people would go back where they came from.”

As an increasing number of immigrants, particularly Turks, take up German citizenship, all the major political parties — even those on the right that have campaigned against more immigration — have started lobbying for the foreign vote.

Party posters and manifestos have appeared in Turkish, the Greens are running a campaign to help immigrants apply for citizenship, Schroeder has dined with Turkish businessmen and the conservatives are running an advert on Turkish television.

At a reception in Cologne held by SPD candidate Akgun for new Germans, SPD General Secretary Franz Muentefering lauded the contribution migrant workers had made to the country and said the party wanted to make it easier still for foreigners to vote.

“Without the people who came to us in the 1960s and 70s Germany would not have become so prosperous. Those who are in the country contribute to making it a rich land,” he said.

Immigrants granted German citizenship soared 30 per cent in 2000 to 186,700 due to the law passed by the centre-left government and stabilised somewhat last year at 178,100.

Turks make up the country’s biggest ethnic minority — the total community estimated at some 2.3 million — and almost half a million now have citizenship. About another half a million immigrants from elsewhere have been granted citizenship.

While Germans of Turkish origin still make up less than one per cent of the electorate, analysts predict their votes could be crucial, particularly in some cities where they are concentrated like Berlin, Hamburg and the western Ruhr area.

Sunday’s vote is heading for a photo-finish with Schroeder’s Social Democrats staging a last minute comeback in polls to draw two to three points ahead of Edmund Stoiber’s conservatives.

“With a close result they could have an effect particularly because they are concentrated in urban centres,” said Dirk Halm from the Centre for Turkish Studies at Essen University.

Friedrich Heckmann, head of the European Forum for Migration Studies at Bamberg University agreed:

Halm said it was surprising that so many ethnic Turks still supported the SPD, but said the conservatives had won few friends by opposing the new citizenship law in 1999 as well as major immigration reform this year.

“The first Turks who came were so-called guest workers who were politicized by the trade unions. Now there are no longer such strong trade union links but it has not been negative for the party preferences,” Halm said.

HEDGING BETS: Analysts said the SPD and Greens should not be complacent. They would have to fight to continue to win the votes of immigrants, particularly as they became more integrated and adopted voting patterns closer to the broader population.—Reuters