Greens do not see election results as a reason to change course

dpa Greens do not see election results as a reason to change course Article by dpa • 3 hours. After their losses in the state elections in Hesse and Bavaria, the Greens see no reason to correct course. What needs to change, however, is the style of the traffic light government, which - instead of showcasing its shared successes - is often perceived by the public as divided, said party leader Omid Nouripour on Monday in Berlin. “Things are getting better, they have to get better again. And we want to work together on that.” Everyone in the traffic light now has to see how the tone can be “smoothed out” a bit. The increase in votes for the AfD in both federal states is worrying, said Nouripour. It is now necessary for the Democrats to “join forces” in order to bring back those “who are still easily accessible” among the AfD voters. When asked whether the Greens' non-limitation-focused stance on asylum and migration issues might have cost his party votes, the co-chair replied that there were no easy solutions in migration policy. Among other things, it must be ensured that there is enough living space, staff and money in the municipalities to accommodate and care for those seeking protection. The many arguments of the traffic light government would definitely have had an impact on the state elections in Hesse and Bavaria, emphasized the top candidate of the Greens and incumbent deputy head of government Tarek Al-Wazir. With regard to the FDP, which only narrowly made it into the state parliament in Hesse, he said that it had become clear that the strategy of “the opposition in the government” was not successful. The CDU led by Prime Minister Boris Rhein won 34.6 percent of the votes in Hesse on Sunday. The AfD was the second strongest force with 18.4 percent. The SPD achieved its worst result in Hesse with 15.1 percent. The Greens lost five percentage points and ended up in fourth place with 14.8 percent. In Bavaria, 14.4 percent of the vote went to the Greens, after 17.6 percent in the last state election. Nouripour called it “incomprehensible” that election winner Markus Söder (CSU) did not even want to invite the Greens to exploratory talks about a possible coalition.