Green Fighter: Germany's Renate Kunast

Relaxing with her feet on her desk at the strikingly modern German parliamentary offices, the woman whose Green Party was once on the radical fringe talks about her mayoral campaign. Three months before the election, Renate Künast is within 5 percentage points of heading Germany’s largest city—the first woman, first Green Party member, and first outsider who didn’t claw her way up through the political machines that have run Berlin as long as anyone can remember.

The 55-year-old lawyer and social worker will face off against hugely popular incumbent Klaus Wowereit, nicknamed Partymeister after he was photographed getting ready to pour champagne into a cabaret actress’s red stiletto.

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