All indications are that German Greens have their best times behind them. Spectacularly they lost the land election, and their organization just started to fall apart internally.
Greens are 1 of the youngest large German political parties. It was formed in the late 1970s and 1980s, its representatives got to the Bundestag for the first time in 1983. For many years the Greens were considered extremists, but over time they stabilised. present they frequently co-create ruling coalitions, both at the level of the lands and of the full country. Not only social democrats work with them, but besides the CDU.
For many years the Greens had support at the level of a few, a maximum of 10 percent. It began to change on a wave of large climate panic a fewer years ago. In Germany, the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg gained tremendous popularity; climateism became the favourite ideology of German youth. At the end of 2018, support for the Greens went up, having its highest in mid-2019 – then even 25 percent of Germans wanted to vote for the climate party.
In the 2021 election, fashion on the Greens was already ending; they received 14.8 percent of the vote. However, they managed to enter the government together with the SPD and the FDP. Robert Habeck was the vice Chancellor of their arm – a man who seemed dynamic at the phlegmatic Olaf Scholzu. This allowed the Greens to have another polling rebound, in 2022 they recorded support of 20–25 percent. It was even said that after the next election Habeck could become Chancellor.
The problem is that after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine Germany began to have increasing economical problems. Robert Habeck, meanwhile, is the minister of the economy. He began to rapidly lose sight of the society, the more so that the Greens are the face of a fresh climate policy – and in the general opinion it is liable for rising energy prices and economical slowdown. This has been reflected in the polls: Greens can now number on 9-12 percent support, just as “before Greta”. And that's it.
Already in May, the Greens did poorly in the elections to the European Parliament – they lost 9 seats. Recently, the organization suffered a spectacular defeat in the elections in the east of the country. In Thuringia, she did not exceed the electoral threshold, receiving only 3.2 percent of the vote. In Saxony, she entered Landtag with a tape throw with a score of 5.1 percent. In Brandenburg, she again did not exceed the threshold (4.1%). It's an image-like disaster – and it was fast to produce results.
Party president Ricardo Lang and Omid Nouripour resigned. The coffin nail was the Sunday election in Brandenburg – a defeat in Thuringia and a weak score in Saxony the organization could inactive survive, but Brandenburg, the land surrounding Berlin, is fundamentally more left-wing than the remainder of the erstwhile GDR. That's why it hurt a lot to get out of Landtag.
Shortly after Lang and Nouripour resigned, the full ten-member organization youth board besides resigned. Unlike in Poland, young women play a political function in Germany; they are peculiarly crucial in left-wing groups. However, while Lang and Nouripour resigned taking work for losing, the youth board was guided by ideological considerations. Young people do not like that the Greens within the government support, among another things, a stricter migration policy or the creation of a peculiar fund for the Bundeswehr.
Whether the Greens will come out of this crisis is hard to say. It will not be easy for them, due to the fact that the economical downturn, caused, among another things, by irresponsible climate policy, will not play in their favour.
Meanwhile, the fresh favourite youth organization has become... alternate to Germany. As both the election results in the east and the polls show, young Germans are peculiarly keen to vote for the AfD, primarily due to their reluctance to the government's migration policy. As long as this trend continues, time will tell. For the time being, AfD won the election in Thuringia and Saxony, and in Brandenburg she finished second, just behind the SPD. On the national stage, she can number on 20 percent of the vote, making her the second most popular organization in the country after the CDU. However, 1 more year until the elections, and the grace of young people, as the destiny of the Greens shows, rides on a horse's spur.
Paweł Chmielewski
