Ich Bin Homosexuell

Klaus "Wowi" Wowereit is the golden child of the German left. He also may become the first openly gay world leader. He has just been re-elected to a second term as Berlin's mayor, and Social Democrats hope he can return their party to national power in four years.

The SPD is yet to recover from the identity crisis it plunged into after the departure of its former leader, Gerhard Schroeder, last year. But with his reputation as a successful consensus builder, Mr Wowereit could prove to be the charismatic leader the party could now do with. Despite Berlin's high unemployment and declining property prices, Mr Wowereit, 52, is a popular figure in the city. In a recent poll, almost 60 per cent of Berliners supported him; just more than 20 per cent backed his CDU challenger Friedbert Pfluger.

Mr Wowereit is doing nothing to dispel the rumours that he would like to go further. "I would like to have more say than I have had in the last five years," he said after Sunday's victory, translated by the German media as meaning: "I want to be chancellor." ...

If Mr Wowereit were to become chancellor, he would be 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." ...

Some politicians could not resist making an issue of his sexual orientation, not surprising in such a conservative country.

Mr Wowereit had a "deformed character", said Frank Steffel, a former rival with the conservative CDU party.

But for now, he is the wunderkind of the German left -- and may hoist the rainbow flag of the gay movement alongside the German tricolour should he go on to defeat the increasingly unpopular Dr Merkel.

At BaT, we would disagree with "Wowi" on just about everything political, but it would certainly be entertaining to watch he and his partner attend world summits.