by: Frank Hornig

It's a Friday evening and Raed Saleh makes himself comfortable in the backseat of a luxury sedan for the trip back to his past. To a collection of high-rise housing projects in Spandau -- a working class neighborhood located on the edge of the city and of its society.

His driver comes to a stop in front of a gymnasium and Saleh climbs out. Inside the building, it is loud and smells of sweat. Some 200 young men are playing soccer on two different floors, with games sometimes going until three in the morning. Hip-hop is booming from the speakers and there is sparkling water and sausage on offer in front of the locker rooms.

The project is called "Midnight Sports," and it is designed to offer Turks, Arabs, Germans and young men of up to 40 additional nationalities an alternative to hanging about on the streets. A kind of occupational therapy for the disadvantaged.

A New Chapter in German Politics

Saleh, 36, floor leader for the center-left Social Democrats in Berlin's city-state parliament and one of two or three SPD politicians vying to ultimately succeed Klaus Wowereit as the city's mayor, knows many of the soccer players personally and they greet him with handshakes. After all, Saleh -- who comes from a poor family, has eight siblings and had few prospects -- grew up in similar circumstances. Now, though, he smiles as he watches the games. "The police have less to do now," he says.

The young men in the gymnasium represent a new chapter in the history of social democracy, at least as Saleh sees it. "First, the SPD helped the workers, and then women," he says. "Now, it is the turn of the immigrants." And he's not just thinking about those participating in Midnight Sports. He is also thinking of himself.

With Wowereit's hold on power weakening -- the result of massive cost overruns and eternal delays in the construction of Berlin's once highly touted, and now mocked, new airport -- attention has turned to Saleh, a Palestinian who came to Berlin from the West Bank as a young boy. His first job was making French fries at Burger King. With a bit of luck, he could become the first head of a German state with Arab roots.

Every new airport setback, every new mini-scandal in Berlin -- such as that surrounding the alleged tax fraud perpetrated by a state secretary close to Wowereit -- raises new questions about the incumbent mayor's future. How long he is able to remain in office depends to a large degree on SPD deputies in Berlin city-state parliament and on the SPD floor leader. But Saleh seems to be in no rush. When others began a push to topple Wowereit, Saleh declined to join them. He is waiting for the right opportunity.

After almost 13 years under Wowereit, there are few certainties in Berlin these days. Hardly anybody knows what the Berlin mayor's plans are, aside from clinging to power. Nobody knows if he intends to cede power ahead of the next elections in 2016 or if he will have to be shoved out the door. The only sure thing is that his party is suffering, trailing even the conservative Christian Democratic Union -- which, despite party leader Angela Merkel's popularity as chancellor, has never had a strong foothold in the German capital -- in public opinion surveys.

Difficult Hurdles

Saleh has already become the city's most popular Social Democrat, just as Wowereit's own ratings have plunged. But whether that will be enough to take over the party's reins remains to be seen. Saleh doesn't just need the support of his faction in parliament -- he would also require the backing of the city-state's SPD chapter. But the chapter's leader, Jan Stöss, has aspirations of becoming Berlin mayor himself. And Wowereit's support will also likely be lacking following a power struggle between the two back in 2011.

More than anything, though, Saleh will have to convince Berlin voters that he has a vision for a metropolis that, while continuing to be a major tourist magnet and possessing an economy that appears at first glance to be doing well, continues to be among the weakest states in Germany, particularly when it comes to the labor market and education. Thus far, Saleh has focused many of his efforts on a group that has largely been ignored: His own milieu of Germans from Turkish or Arab families, a group which has seldom voted in the past.

On a recent afternoon in Spandau, Saleh was driving through the highrise housing complex in which he grew up. His father worked in an industrial bakery while his mother was a housewife, taking care of the many children. Saleh points up to the ninth floor where his mother is waving. By chance, one of Saleh's brothers walks across the parking lot. "That's Malek," the SPD politician says laughing. "He just got his Ph.D. in biochemistry yesterday."

An Exceptional Career Path

He's also happy with his own ascent, which began at Burger King. He started flipping burgers and then moved up to the cash register; before long he was in charge of the kitchen. Ultimately, he became a director in the holding company that owned the franchise. "I was very proud," Saleh says. In parallel, he completed his secondary school studies and started studying medicine before opting not to continue. Later, with two friends, he founded a media agency that still exists.

But such career paths are the exception in Saleh's former neighborhood, one that frequently lands in the headlines and is among Berlin's toughest areas. Some 80 percent of the children are from families that survive on social welfare. "You know how high voter participation is here," he asks? "Just 35 percent."

It would be a positive development were the district to create more biochemists like his brother; if an entire generation could be helped to take a step forward; if education and work would become the norm. "I have been working since I was 16," Saleh says. "It was always important to my parents that, if at all possible, you earn the money you need yourself."

This attitude, Saleh believes, is one that has to

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