Greens’ election hopes hit East German wall

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Berlin (AFP)

Long popular in Western cities, the German Greens are hitting a wall with voters from the ex-Communist East that could cost them the chance to snatch the crown from Chancellor Angela Merkel when she retires this year.

The now 40-year-old center-left environmentalist party will meet from Friday for a congress to pave the way for the September general election after a deadly performance last Sunday in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.

The poor result of the votes cemented an image of lost momentum for the party, which, for the first time in its history, is claiming the chancellery.

“The Greens are still both: potentially the most powerful political force in the country and a small niche party, depending on location, time and situation,” said the weekly Der Spiegel.

Despite ambitions for a double-digit result, the Greens got just 6% in the country’s poorest state, less than a point higher than their 2016 score.

“It was not what we expected,” admitted Annalena Baerbock, also 40, candidate for chancellor of the Greens.

“Some of our climate protection messages have failed to reach voters,” she said, despite devastating droughts in the rural area in recent summers.

“In the east, which is still marked by the shock of reunification, potentially costly ecological measures are not very attractive to voters,” political scientist Hajo Funke told AFP.

The election gave Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDUs) a resounding victory with 37% of the vote, pushing the far-right AfD to a distant second place with 21%.

This solid result put the wind in the sails of CDU leader Armin Laschet, Baerbock’s main opponent to lead Europe’s largest economy after 16 years of Merkel at the helm.

– Two horse race –

The Greens, out of the federal government since 2005, were soaring nationally, with voters telling pollsters the climate crisis was their main concern, albeit by a much larger margin in the west.

A poll last month also showed Germans hungry for change, with more than 60% hoping for a new government after the election.

The Green Seniors say they are happy that the campaign is shaping up as a two-horse race and that the enthusiasm for young Baerbock, mother of two young children, has persisted among their energetic base.

But they recognize that Baerbock, who hails from the west but represents an eastern constituency outside of Berlin in parliament, will have to make the Greens more than a one-question party if they hope to win instantly.

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Greens co-leader Robert Habeck said the disappointment in the weekend’s elections had served as a wake-up call that they should “look beyond climate protection”.

He cited resolving the growing divide between rural poverty and urban wealth, in particular by creating opportunities for young job seekers, and developing public transport infrastructure as sure winners of the votes.

He acknowledged that the “enormous political effort” required to reduce carbon dioxide emissions should be accompanied by “social measures” to cushion the blow to those whose jobs would be cut in the energy transition.

The party is also planning a targeted campaign for voters over 60 in the east and west, arguing that “climate protection is also a policy for your grandchildren”.

– “Bad luck and slippages” –

But beyond the issues that preoccupy voters in the East, whose economic output lags behind the West three decades after reunification, a series of Baerbock blunders in recent weeks has shone part of the its shine.

“There was no Baerbock effect in the Saxony-Anhalt elections – it probably weighed on the state party with oversights, bad luck and slippages,” the business newspaper Handelsblatt said.

Failure to report to parliament a bonus she received from the party and inaccuracies – since corrected – on her CV have undermined the message of improved party transparency.

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Habeck’s comments on a visit to Kiev last month appearing to support the supply of arms to Ukraine added to the negative headlines, although he quickly brushed them off.

Green proposals to increase gasoline prices and cut domestic flights in favor of rail and road links have also declined sharply in some neighborhoods.

Senior Green officials admit it will be an uphill battle to counter Tory offers to present them as a party for city dwellers sipping latte and driving electric vehicles.

“We must continue to work to make it clear that we are a party at home in the cities and the countryside,” parliamentary group leader Katrin Goering-Eckardt, from the state of Thuringia, told public radio in the east of the country.

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