Cem Özdemir, Germany's Turkish-heritage political star

BERLIN

Cem Özdemir of the German Greens pulled off a hard-fought victory in a key state poll on March 8 and is now set to become the country's first state premier of Turkish heritage.

Özdemir, 60, has been a national figure for decades in Germany. He calls himself a "Swabian Anatolian," a nod to his Turkish parents and the south-western state of Baden-Wuerttemberg where he was born and raised.

In the March 8 election for Baden-Württemberg's state parliament, Özdemir led the party in overcoming poll deficits against the center-right CDU of Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Preliminary results early on election night put the Greens in first place with almost 32 percent of the vote, with the CDU trailing at around 30 percent or a little under.

That achievement caps a prominent political career that saw Özdemir become one of the first federal MPs with Turkish roots in 1994.

He was able to draw on his considerable name recognition in the Baden-Württemberg campaign, especially when compared to the CDU's lead candidate, the relatively unknown 37-year-old Manuel Hagel.

He also had more experience of election campaigning, having run as the Greens' lead candidate for the 2017 federal election, together with Katrin Goering-Eckardt.

Özdemir was born the son of a textile worker and a seamstress in the small town of Bad Urach, some 50 kilometers south of Stuttgart, in December 1965.

His parents were part of the wave of "Gastarbeiter" or "guest workers" who provided much of the manpower for Germany's post-war economic miracle, many of them from Türkiye.

Özdemir benefited from the support of teachers who encouraged him to pursue studies that led to a qualification as a youth worker and educator. He took German nationality in 1983.

Beyond his service as a federal MP, Özdemir sat in the European Parliament between 2004 and 2009. He co-led the Greens federally from 2008 to 2018 and served as agriculture minister under Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD)-led government.

Özdemir made much of his foreign policy expertise in the televised debates in the run-up to the Baden-Württemberg poll.

He argued that his experience and contacts could help the region — home to car industry stalwarts such as Porsche and Mercedes-Benz — weather U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff blitz.