Ricarda Land and Omid Nouripour: the leadership of the German Greens have announced their resignations amid the party's freefall in popularity.
Peter Caddle
Co-leaders Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour both released statements on September 25 declaring that the entirety of the party’s executive board would resign over the result of the Brandenburg elections on September 22, which saw the Greens fall to zero seats in the state.
Writing on X, Lang said the result was evidence that the Greens were now facing the “deepest crisis” it had had “in decades” and that the party must work to rescue itself in time for Germany’s national elections next year.
For that to happen, she added, a change in leadership had to occur.
“This means that now is not the time to sit tight, but to take responsibility by enabling a new start,” she wrote.
“This is why the federal executive board decided this morning that it is time to place the fortunes of this great party in new hands. We are resigning from our office with effect from the federal party conference in Wiesbaden. It has been an honour for us to serve this party.”
Nouripour said the executive had a “responsibility to act in the best interests of the party,” and that such an obligation now meant he and his colleagues must surrender their positions.
He added that a new executive board would be elected at a future federal party conference.
The resignations came amid a disastrous few months for the Greens, with the party suffering defeat after defeat in recent state-level elections.
In Saxony, the party saw its regional parliament seat share reduced by more than 40 per cent, while it lost every one of its local MPs in both Brandenburg and Thuringia.
By contrast, all three states saw the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party rise in popularity, with it becoming the single most popular faction in Thuringia. The populist-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) also outperformed the Greens in all three of the state elections.
Things are also looking dire at the federal level. With the Greens having previously seen party popularity spike to highs of 23 per cent in 2022, recent polling indicated that it has now dropped below the 10 per cent mark for the first time since 2017.
Much of the party’s senior figures have become subjects of mockery over their political and personal eccentricities.
Some members have attempted to stifle jibes directed at them. Foreign minister Annalena Baerbock at one point ordered Elon Musk’s X to censor a parody account dedicated to mocking her questionable command of the English language, although that was refused by the platform.
Such battles sometimes end up in the German courts, with one high-profile case seeing prosecutors and defendants argue back and forth over whether a voter in the country had the right to portray Lang as being fat.
“Ricarda Lang is fat, you can’t just portray her as thin,” one defence attorney declared earlier this year while defending his client from accusations he criminally insulted several Greens politicians.
The court ended up finding in the defendant’s favour, dismissing an attempt to hand him a €6,000 fine by public prosecutors.
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