The two co-chairs of the Greens, Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour, announced their resignation on Wednesday following the group’s failure in the elections in the state of Brandenburg, where the environmentalists were excluded from the regional parliament.
Lang and Noripour had replaced Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck as heads of government when they entered Olaf Scholz’s government as representatives of the Greens in the coalition, respectively in charge of the foreign affairs and economics portfolios.
“The outcome of the regional elections is the culmination of the most serious crisis our party has experienced in the last decade. “We have come to the conclusion that a new beginning is necessary,” Nouripour said during an appearance.
In the eastern German state of Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin, the Greens failed to reach the 5% threshold required to enter parliament.
Lang, for his part, said the party needed “new faces” at the top and that the party congress, to be held in Wiesbaden between November 15 and 17, would have to choose successors. “In addition, a new strategic position is needed regarding the role the Greens will play in the new, radically changing party system,” he said.
Until the congress, Lang and Nouripur will continue in their interim roles.
Before the Brandenburg elections, the Greens were also excluded from the Thuringian state parliament.
The Greens’ statutes prohibit the same person from simultaneously holding a ministry and a senior party position.
In the last legislative elections in 2021, the Greens won 14.7% of the vote. Voting intention surveys now give it around 10%. The latest survey, carried out by the demographic institute INSA, sees the party at 9.5%, which is below the 10% mark for the first time in seven years.
