The resignation of the two co-presidents of the Greens Ricardo Lang and Omid Nuripour and overall of the party’s presidium did not fall like a bolt of lightning, but it is the first serious impact on a party of the three-party coalition government after the political earthquake in the eastern Germanywhile the campaign for the 2025 federal elections has begun for good.

The Greens suffered a historic defeat and failed to enter the local parliaments in Brandenburg and Thuringiawhile in Saxony they entered the local parliament marginally.

Citizens in the three East German states voted against the inability of the Greens to show their distinct political stamp in federal politics, while young voters in particular have been literally overwhelmed by the Far Right. German media are already talking about the deepest political crisis among the Greens in their history.

New faces for a new beginning

Party co-chairwoman Ricarda Lang said on Wednesday that the party’s executive board takes full responsibility for the crash in eastern Germany and that the resignation effectively facilitates a new start for the party. “New faces are needed to get the party out of the crisis,” said Ricarda Lang.

“We take responsibility” said Omid Nuripour, the other co-president of the party, that fundamental issues and the position of the Greens must be discussed again, from peace, prosperity to climate protection. “The next federal election is not just any election. Among other things, it will be decided in which direction this country will go and what role the Greens will assume in the party system,” he said among other things.

The decision of the co-presidents of the party to resign taking responsibility is also welcomed by the vice chancellor, Ministry of Economy and Energy and a leading member of the Greens, who will probably run for chancellor, Robert Habeck. In fact, in his first statements to the German news agency, he says: “We all bear responsibility, including me. And I also want to face her.” He also called for an “open discussion” at the party conference about a possible chancellor bid, asking for “honesty” from members in the secret ballot.

Decisions are expected on November 15, at the party’s next congress, which runs until November 17 in Wiesbaden. The party’s new presidency will be elected there. The duo of Lang and Nuripour have been in charge of the Greens since the start of 2022 and their terms would end at the end of 2024 at the earliest.

The opposition calls for early elections

At the same time, the opposition is closely monitoring the developments both in the Greens and in the coalition as a whole. And the Liberals passed “into political insignificance”, as the Taggespiegel newspaper commented on the 0.8% they received in Brandenburg, while they had already “unleashed” polls in both Thuringia and Saxony.

However, members of the far-right Alternative for Germany were quick to comment on the stormy developments in the Greens, with the party’s co-chair Alice Weidel speaking of “the beginning of the end of the three-party coalition” calling on Chancellor Olaf Solz to ask for the confidence of the parliament.

The representative of the Bavarian Christian Socialists in the federal parliament, Alexander Dobrid, comments on the disintegration of the party’s presidency as a problem of the government and not a problem of the Greens, considering today’s developments as a warning sign of what will happen in the next period in the federal government of the Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals.

Speaking to the RTL network, Alexander Dobrid even said that the Christian Socialists, a sister party of the Christian Democrats with a joint parliamentary group in the Bundestag, “have been preparing for early elections for a long time.”

The representative of K.O. speaks of the “collapse of the government coalition in front of the cameras”. of the Christian Democrats and responsible for Internal Policy Torsten Fry. Speaking to the newspaper Rheinische Post, he believes that, in addition to the resignation of the leading duo of the Greens in the party hierarchy, the two leading ministers of the party cannot remain in power either, Foreign Affairs Minister Analena Burbock and the Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Economy and Energy Robert Hambeck. The Christian Democrat MP even said that “instead of the country slipping into a new dead end every week, brave decisions are needed”.

It should be noted that the pressures faced by the Liberals internally are enormous, with top officials such as party president Christian Lindner and vice-president Wolfgang Kubicki giving Chancellor Soltz an “ultimatum” for final decisions on the budget and immigration in the winter equinox, i.e. December 21st.