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Europe’s largest economy will elect its new government on 26 September for a four-year term whose primary task will be to lead Germany into a post CoVID world. The battle lines are drawn and the debate is heating up on a variety of issues, both internal and external, that matter to the voters. The major parties have announced their Chancellor candidates and the race is wide open in what promises to be a close call. There is only one certainty that the four-time Chancellor Angela Merkel will not be leading the next government having announced her intention to step down two-and-a-half years ago.
Germany is a multi-party democracy. But the contest has largely a shoot-out between center-right CDU/CSU and center-left SPD with a variety of smaller players aligning on one side or the other – sometimes after electoral results. But in this election, it is one of the smaller parties – the Greens – that is setting the pace and in some opinion polls is ahead of the two major parties. It is for the first time in post-war Germany that a non-CDU/CSU and non-SPD candidate has a realistic chance of becoming the next Chancellor.
That leader is the 40-year old Annalena Baerbock, born in the same year that the Green Party was founded, the co-leader of The Greens since 2018. In a departure from the tradition of having joint nominees, for the first time, the Greens have nominated one Chancellor candidate. Official ratification of the Chancellor’s candidature is due in June and it looks all but a formality. As the 16-year long Merkel-era is coming to a close, Baerbock was quick to position herself as standing for a new beginning against forces of status quoism. With SPD staring at all-time low numbers, she stands a good chance to gain the most from continuity fatigue.
Baerbock was a gymnast in her teens and is credibly threatening to jump to the top of the pile. The political science and public law graduate from the University of Hamburg also has a master’s degree in Public International Law from the London School of Economics. If one doesn’t count the anti-war and anti-nuclear protests that she joined as a child with her parents, she has been associated with the Brandenburg unit of the Greens since 2005.
Her rise in German politics has been rather swift, swift enough for her to be termed a rising star. She started off as an assistant to Green MP Elisabeth Schroedter. In 2008, she got a seat on the executive board of the party’s state group in Brandenburg and also served as the spokesperson of the Green Party’s working group on European affairs from 2008-13. She was unsuccessful in her first attempt at a parliamentary seat in 2009, but she didn’t have to wait long as she clinched a seat in 2013 and retained in 2017. She was the Greens’ climate policy spokesperson, a core theme for Greens, and later its co-leader. She was also part of the Green delegation that was working out a deal to form the government with CDU/CSU in 2017.
In their 40 year history, Greens have had two sections within the party comprising of fundamentalists and realists called Fundis and Realos respectively. The irreconcilable differences between the two camps have been a major reason why Greens have had co-chairpersons, one from each group. Baerbock has played an important role in uniting the camps which yielded results in 2018 when she along with Robert Habeck won the election as co-leaders even though both were centrists. It reflected the evolution of Greens as a centrist party that appeals to voters disillusioned by CDU/CSU. But it has also meant tempering some of the radical aspects of the Green agenda specifically related to NATO and multilateralism.
Radical environmental issues are where the origins of the Green Movement lies and the campaign is likely to be woven around them. Baerbock has already spoken about further accelerating the ambitious emissions targets. She has called for 70% cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2030, compared to the current goal of a 55% reduction. She is also insisting on the phase-out of coal and nuclear energy to be replaced by clean renewable energy. The biggest impact would be the reduction and eventual elimination of fossil fuel-powered cars on Germany’s roads, which is nothing short of radical for a country with proud auto engineering history.
On foreign policy, Baerbock has been vocal in her criticism of Russia in relation to Ukraine and even more so on Nordstream 2 which is unsurprising given its environmental implications. Despite her willingness to do business with China, she is not accommodative of human rights violations or letting Germany be a market for goods produced through forced labor. No wonder there is already a surge in hate and fake content on social media in order to discredit her and her campaign which goes to show that she is already making certain sections uneasy.
As things stand currently, the Greens are poised to head the next government with the CDU/CSU. There is a reasonable chance that they would be doing it with Baerbock as Chancellor, something that was unthinkable some years ago. Theoretically, she could also land the top job in a three-party coalition with SPD and FDP, though a three-party coalition with SPD and Left looks unlikely given her hardline stance on Russia and China.
Despite Merkel’s long reign, German politics remains dominated by middle-aged men and Baerbock is only the second candidate ever to be nominated as a Chancellor candidate. The Greens have had a more gender-inclusive policy and they have had co-chairperson of the party, one man and one woman, an affirmative attempt to be gender-neutral. But Baerbock has many more barriers to break. Arising out of the 60s student movements, Greens were traditionally a radical anti-establishment party who decided to participate in government only in 1998. They have tempered their stance over the years which has won them more centrist voters than the left-leaning voters they have lost and are “mainstream” to a large extent. They have also been helped by mainstreaming of environmental issues and their appeal transcends their traditional well educated and culturally progressive. If Baerbock ends up leading a government in Europe’s economic powerhouse, it will not only be a momentous occasion for Germany but a cataclysmic one for the green movement across west Europe where voters are still sceptic to hand over reigns to an anti-party party.
(Zeyaur Rahman holds a Masters degree from JNU. Along with his day job, he blogs on socio-political affairs and curates subaltern historical content.)
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