German Green Party leadership throws in the towel after election disaster
Published: Wednesday, Sep 25th 2024, 12:40
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A new start for the German Greens: Following the party's failures in several elections, the party executive has announced its resignation - one year before the next general election. This was announced by the two co-chairs Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour in Berlin.
"We need a fresh start," said Nouripour. A new executive committee should be elected at the federal party conference in mid-November. The Federal Minister of Economics and former co-chair Robert Habeck (Greens) called the announced resignation of the party executive a "great service to the party".
The Greens had suffered drastic losses in the four previous elections - the European elections and the state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg. In Brandenburg, they more than halved their result. They were kicked out of two state parliaments. Only in Saxony did they just manage to re-enter the state parliament. However, they are no longer needed there to form a government. Previously, they were in government in all three states.
"Don't stick to your own chair"
"New faces are needed to lead the party out of this crisis," said Lang. "Now is not the time to stick to your own chair. Now is the time to take responsibility, and we are taking this responsibility by making a fresh start possible," she added.
Lang and Nouripour were elected co-chairs at the end of January 2022 - as successors to Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock after the latter joined the government. They are relatively popular within the party. Many Green Party members give them credit for the fact that - unlike some of their predecessors - there were no signs of rivalry or differences of opinion between them. Lang and Nouripour were confirmed in office in November 2023 - when the current federal executive was actually elected for two years.
Nouripour touched
Nouripour had already sounded relatively resigned on Monday. He spoke of a bitter defeat in Brandenburg and at the same time expressed his dismay at the state of the traffic light coalition. "The big feng shui moment will probably not come, and nobody believes me when I say that," he said after consultations with the party executive. "We are doing our job, we are trying to move the country forward and we also feel bound by the coalition agreement, by what has been agreed with each other," said the Green Party leader. "But that's it then too."
There are repeated public disputes over various issues within the coalition of SPD, FDP and Greens. Nouripour had already described the traffic light as a "transitional solution".
Habeck: Step shows foresight
Habeck said of the party executive's resignation: "This step shows great strength and foresight. Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour are proving what party chairmanship means to them: responsibility. They are paving the way for a powerful new beginning."
Habeck went on to say: "We have had a tough few months, the Greens have faced a strong headwind." The defeats in the last elections were undoubtedly influenced by the national trend, he said. "We all bear responsibility here, including me. And I also want to face up to it."
Party conference in November
The Greens want to decide in the fall whether they will put forward a candidate for chancellor in next year's federal elections or just run with a top candidate. The decision is expected to be made before the federal party conference, which will take place in Wiesbaden in mid-November. After Foreign Minister Baerbock said that she does not want to be the frontrunner this time, it all comes down to Habeck. Baerbock was the first Green candidate for chancellor in 2021 and her election result of 14.8 percent fell well short of expectations.
©Keystone/SDA
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