At the party conference in Wiesbaden, the Greens attempt a restart with more green color. Response from Berlin

The election season for the February 23rd snap election is well under way, so this weekend’s Green conference in Wiesbaden, West Germany takes on a new dimension. The vice-chancellor and sub. Economy and Energy Robert Hambeck has already announced his candidacy for chancellorship, even though the Greens are running low. His candidacy seems to have the broad support of the party.

“Robert Habeck has everything one needs to be a good chancellor,” a conference document says. At the same time, as everything shows, in the pre-election campaign for the Greens he will not be alone but will have by his side the deputy. Foreign Allena Burbok, sending a message of continuity but also unity for the party.

In his new video on social media, Robert Habeck “rolls up his sleeves” for work and a new start for the Greens, after the deterioration of the coalition government and their disappointing results in the European elections and the three disastrous contests for the party in eastern Germany (Thuringia , Saxony, Brandenburg).

Reckoning, shots at Lindner, new targets

With a message of a new green economic policy and support for the weak, the Greens are trying to regain lost political ground. In fact, on Friday, close to midnight, the delegates approved a text of commitments for the new era with an emphasis on strengthening the economy, protecting the climate, reducing social inequalities and defending democracy.

In the same text of positions entitled “Taking responsibility at this moment” they make their own account of the failure of the three-party government of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals. As the newspaper Zeit observes, the Greens clearly place the responsibility for the collapse of the coalition government on the party of the Liberals and their leader, Christian Lindner, a devotee of rigid fiscal discipline without exceptions.

From then on, in their account, the Greens recall their positive contribution to the legislative work of the coalition government in terms of investments in renewable energy sources and new infrastructure, in the increase of the minimum hourly wage to twelve euros and also in the simplification of the regime for acquiring German citizenship .

New leading duo for a fresh start

At the same time, the eyes are on the duo’s successors, Omid Nuripour and Ricarda Lange, who are leaving the leadership of the party, as they had announced after the collapse of the Greens in eastern Germany, taking a share of the responsibility for the collapse of the Greens.

Successors in the leadership of the party will be the young MP Felix Banasczak and Hambek’s trusted partner Franziska Bradner, Deputy Minister of Economy. They aim to give the party back its true “green character” that it lost during the years of co-government with an emphasis on the environment, climate change and equality, and openly support Habeck’s candidacy for the chancellorship, hoping for a new beginning for a better party.

No reversals in the polls

In the meantime, the Greens in the latest opinion polls, although the fourth party, show a small increase and according to the latest record (YouGov) they move to 11.5%.

The Christian Democrats/Christian Socialists remain first (32.9%), followed by the far-right Alternative for Germany (18.2%) and Olaf Solz’s Social Democrats (15.5%). The Sarah Wagenknecht Alliance is moving to 6.6% while the Liberals and the Left are moving below the 5% electoral threshold required for a party to enter the Bundestag.