Federal election: The Greens shrink into the unknown

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Federal election: The Greens shrink into the unknown Peter Carstens • 7 hours • 3 minutes reading time The next election campaign for the Greens began a few minutes before the polls closed. At a quarter to six, the two top politicians Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock appeared before their supporters and celebrated an allegedly successful election campaign, even before the first forecasts appeared on the large screen in the Kreuzberg festival hall, estimating the chancellor candidate at just under 14 percent and predicting a loss of votes and weight. The election campaign was "the one I wanted to lead from the start." He was proud of it. And Baerbock, still foreign minister, confirmed to Habeck that he did not need a hand-knitted hat from her during the winter election campaign, because the election campaign was hot and the candidate was "hot." Critics, who had also already spread out around the hall to give their interpretation of the events, saw things differently. The heads of the Green Youth arrived early, Jette Nietzadt and Jakob Blasel did not think the election campaign sounded particularly good, nor did they think the prospects associated with the result were good. Unlike Habeck, Baerbock and a large part of the party, they want to prevent the Greens from forming a coalition with the Union. The Greens have not lived up to their potential, says Blasel, and climate and social justice have played too small a role. For the youth association, it is about "implementing left-wing politics" - and that cannot be imagined with Friedrich Merz and the Union. "We are always ready to take responsibility" Habeck saw things very differently that evening: a "respectable result, but not a great result". Many voters no longer wanted to join the Greens in a coalition with the Union and then voted for the Left, but he was always ready to continue to take responsibility, "of course". The formation of the government must be completed quickly. But he is no longer counting on the Greens being asked first. Also because the CSU achieved a very good result. But: "We are always ready to take responsibility." For the left wing of the party, who had already been critical of Habeck's solo candidacy, the election campaign had taken a turn for the worse when Habeck switched to Merz's lane with his own plan to restrict migration more strictly and an "enforcement offensive" for open arrest warrants. This may also have contributed to the fact that left-leaning voters, especially younger ones, increasingly switched to the Left. The Left had already become the strongest force among young people in the unofficial under-18 elections, and on election day around 27 percent of first-time voters voted for the Left, 19 percent for the AfD. The Greens halved their share in this group to around 12 percent. These findings are likely to be particularly painful for the youngest member of the party executive, Felix Banaszak, the new left wing party leader. Banaszak only succeeded Ricarda Lang in November of last year, and there is already a longing for Lang's return. Banaszak also had a weak effect on her own people. The party has clearly lost many young people, although it has gained tens of thousands of members in recent weeks. Only the evening of the election will show whether and what kind of power it has. A two-party coalition had to be written off early on, and the question of whether the CDU/CSU and SPD would also need the Greens to form a majority remained open. Discussions about the options for the coming weeks took place internally on election night, and journalists were to be excluded from the so-called election party in Kreuzberg late in the evening.