The article explains why the national SPD leadership wants to influence the result but not too prominently.
Additional points I have picked up:
There is personal antipathy between the leader of the Greens and the leader of the FDP.
I am interested to see the evidence that the Greens might be keeping the option of work with the PDS in the frame. Although some of their members come from Bundnis 90 are are hostile to the PDS, in terms of politics the Greens might have more in commond with the interventionist PDS than the idologically non-interventionist FDP. Furthermore there may be greater room for tactical compromise: the PDS does not need to fight hard over major posts in the coalition administration: it could give ground to the Greens on this because what it wants to do is to establish the principle more widely that a Red-Red alliance is possible. Besides it is skillful enought to use the wider civil society flexibly and not just to restrict itself to party skirmishing.
However at this point in time the Berlin SPD executive has voted 2:1 to pursue the FDP-Green-SPD coalition first.
Chris Burford
London