Bundestag election campaign: Candidacy for chancellor: Habeck wants to do it

Robert Habeck wants to lead the Greens in the election campaign as candidate for chancellor. The German Press Agency found out about this in Berlin. “Spiegel” and ARD had previously reported. Today the Vice Chancellor and Minister of Economic Affairs wants to make his candidacy official.

The election for the top man of the Greens is planned for the federal party conference of the Greens, which begins on Friday next week in Wiesbaden. There Habeck will seek the support of the delegates in order to start the election campaign with a tailwind.

Habeck had already announced the step on social media the day before. Almost six years after his departure from Twitter and Facebook, he returned to Platform X. “Leaving places like these to the loudmouths and populists is easy. But making it easy for yourself can’t be the solution. Not today. Not this week. Not this time. That’s why I’m back on X,” says one Post from the Green politician. Robert Habeck now also has an account on Instagram.

In another post, Habeck can be seen editing a text manuscript. In the background there is a calendar on which November 8th, today’s Friday, is outlined in red. He also hums the melody of Herbert Grönemeyer’s hit “Time for something to turn around”. The post is titled “Different from here on out” – the title of a book by Habeck.

Habeck hopes for the middle

Habeck stands for a Realo course and hopes to win over voters from the center. As Vice Chancellor, he helped negotiate compromises that were offended by the left wing of his party – for example, tightening migration policy. However, as a candidate, Habeck cannot go too far with the distinction from his own party, with which he has repeatedly flirted – after all, voters still tick one party.

His internal critics also know that Habeck is one of the party’s driving forces, albeit a somewhat damaged one after several years as minister (keyword: heating law). In the speech duel with CDU leader Friedrich Merz and SPD leader Olaf Scholz (SPD), he is likely to score points with his charisma. However, Habeck’s love of spontaneous speech carries risks: he hits the wrong note or gets the facts wrong.

Tandem Habeck-Baerbock should go into the election campaign

The personality has been an open secret for a long time. In July, Habeck’s only serious competitor, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, declared that she did not want to pursue a candidacy for chancellor. At the end of September she said in the ARD “Report from Berlin”: “Robert Habeck is the one who is leading us into the federal election campaign.”

Habeck himself has already made his interest in the top position more than clear. At the end of September he said on ZDF’s “heute journal” that at the party conference there should be a very honest debate about “who we want to be, what we did during our years in government, what we achieved and which people – and whether I am one “can be the people who will lead this party forward in the next few years”.

The relationship between Baerbock and Habeck is not untroubled after she defeated Habeck as the Greens’ candidate for chancellor in 2021. In the upcoming new federal election campaign, both want to pull together.

Difficult starting point and principle of hope

However, Habeck’s chances of actually moving into the Chancellery are limited. In polls, his party is currently at a measly 9 to 11 percent. At this point, the Greens like to point to the SPD’s poll numbers, which are only a few percentage points better, and are also sending a candidate for chancellor into the race.

Habeck is dragging along the poor economic situation in Germany like a burden on his leg. He himself explains the situation, among other things, with the loss of Russian energy imports as a result of the war of aggression against Ukraine and the delay in reforms by the previous governments. But as economics minister, he will hardly be able to shake off the issue.

Habeck outlined how he imagines the federal election campaign at the end of August at a campaign appearance in Saxony, where his party suffered heavy losses a few days later and managed to get back into the state parliament with a lot of trouble. Habeck believes in the possibility of a mood change for the better. “And there just has to come some crystallization point where we prove to ourselves that we are much, much better in Germany than the mood and the surveys show at the moment. If that happens, then anything can really happen,” he said at the time .