Klaus Wowereit (left) and his partner Joerg Kubicki

Berlin, Sept. 24: Germany is embroiled in an anguished debate over whether the country is ready for its first gay leader after its foremost homosexual politician won a second term as mayor of Berlin.

Klaus Wowereit, 52, who has made no secret of his sexuality nor of his ambition to become chancellor, unabashedly hugged his long-standing boyfriend before television cameras last week after his triumph at the polls.

His victory was immediately hailed as a badly needed success for the country’s ailing Social Democrats, whose former leader, Gerhard Schröder, was ousted as chancellor by Angela Merkel in a close-run general election last year.

Bereft of a charismatic candidate to challenge Merkel, the conservative Christian Democrat leader, in the next election, the Social Democrats have begun discussing seriously the prospect of fielding the flamboyant, party-loving Wowereit against her.

Michael Müller, a senior Berlin Social Democrat, said: “Klaus Wowereit would be an ideal candidate for any political post at national level.” His candidacy has also received the support of key figures on the party’s Left, including young socialist leaders Andrea Nahles and Björn Böhning and the former Social Democrat chancellor candidate, Hans-Jochen Vogel.

The fragility of Merkel’s “grand coalition” of conservatives and Social Democrats means the next election could come sooner than the 2009 deadline.

“Will Wowereit be the first gay chancellor?” asked a headline in the mass-circulation Bild newspaper last week. If so, he would be the first openly homosexual leader in the world — barring Norway’s finance minister, Per-Kristian Foss, who was briefly installed as acting Prime Minister in 2002.

The silver-haired Wowereit is known to his supporters as “Wowi”.