The "Green Heart of Germany" is called Thuringia in the local marketing speech. However, this has more to do with the forests in the Free State than with the coloring of the political landscape. Especially green is not in the two-million-inhabitant country. The green upswing is more likely to take place in the west.
In the European elections in May 2019, the Greens in Thuringia only got about 9 percent. It was the worst result nationwide. In the state elections next Sunday they will hardly do better, it follows the polls. The success-spoiled Greens have a particularly difficult time here.
Or not. For whatever the outcome, one thing already seems certain: The Greens will also be in the next state government. For both the left under Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow and the CDU under challenger Mike Mohring needs the Greens in each targeted coalition.
Damned to govern, the Greens can only hope for the red-red-green wish alliance in which they co-govern since 2014. "We want to show that we can continue to govern, in this alliance," says Anja Siegesmund, Green Party's top candidate and Thuringia's Minister of the Environment. "Gern red-green-red," she pushes behind. Of course, the order is important. However, the SPD would have to end up behind the Greens.
"Fridays for displacement!"
Three scenarios are currently conceivable for Thuringia after the election:
- The FDP does not make it into the state parliament. Left, SPD and Greens reach a narrow majority and continue to govern.
- The FDP returns to parliament. For red-red-green then it would probably not be enough, the only alternative would be a so-called Zimbabwe coalition (country colors green, yellow, red, black) from CDU, SPD, Greens and FDP.
- It is enough, regardless of the FDP, neither for red-red-green nor for a three- or four-party coalition under the leadership of the CDU. Then, as a way out of a minority government or new elections, there would be only one of the alliances that the CDU has so far stubbornly excluded: a cooperation with the Left or AfD .
The Greens are doing everything to ensure that the first scenario occurs. In the last two weeks before the election, therefore, the collected Green Prominence is traveling in Thuringia. Party leader Annalena Baerbock, for example, has a date on a Friday afternoon in October with top candidate Siegesmund for a city walk through Weida.
The Osterburg towers over the small town, through which flows the white magpie. Siegesmund comes from nearby, from Gera. The White Magpie knows her from her childhood, then the river was polluted by the local dyeing. The colors would have fascinated and irritated her as a child, she says.
A car rushes past the group of the Greens, a young man roars out of the lowered window: "Fridays for Hubraum!" In Weida, a lot of things come together, which generally treats the Greens in Thuringia:
- Rural regions dominate, but the Greens gain voters, especially in urban areas;
- Weida lost about 30 percent of its population after the fall of the Wall;
- On average, the Thuringians are 47 years old, which is another three years above the national average - the Greens score rather in younger groups of voters;
- In the whole of Thuringia the Greens have only 1100 members;
Siegesmund and Baerbock take a walk on the Osterburg. Mayor Heinz Hopfe talks with the politicians about a dam that urgently needs to be renovated. At the lookout point, Baerbock and Siegesmund let their gaze wander over the vacant former police station, a church tower, the restored houses, a school.
Baerbock says, "You have the most beautiful school I have ever seen."
The mayor says, "From the outside."
For long refurbishment times, the Greens are made responsible, after all, they rule with. They can not record a positive official bonus. And could the Greens, for example, in the European elections in the fight against the AfD score, as the last two Eastern elections in Brandenburg and Saxony show: In the end, everything was focused on the fight between the respective Prime Minister Party and the AfD, the Greens landed on End at around ten percent. In Thuringia is now added that Prime Minister Ramelow with CDU candidate Mohring also has a real challenger beyond the AfD.
Valerie Höhne / SPIEGEL ONLINE
Annalena Baerbock and Anja Siegesmund at the Osterburg: "They have the most beautiful school I have ever seen"
At the federal level, the Greens already dampen the expectations of the election. What would a good result be? "That we emerge significantly stronger compared to the last election," says Baerbock, decidedly modest: "we quarrel at every percentage point." An election result that is not in the double digits did not go well with the story of the "Alliance Party" as the Greens want to rise to the "leading force of the left center".
First direct mandate in Thuringia?
In Weida, the Greens have loaded into the "Café Sieben", there are Danube waves, apple pie, hot chocolate and coffee. Martin Titscher, 38, has put up for the party to the local election, but is non-party. "Even small people welcome the concerns of the Greens," he says in the soft Thuringian dialect. But there remains the question of how climate protection can be made socially acceptable. This is partly not well communicated by the federal level. The AfD, on the other hand, would arrive with their black and white messages and their populism.
A good half an hour's drive from Weida is Jena. The university city is green heartland for Thüringer conditions. Siegesmund has chances to win the first green direct mandate in Thuringia here.
They have invited to Townhall, a format in which the public can ask politicians questions. The event takes place in a circus tent.
Voice # 117 - Thuringia Election: Who can govern at all? And what is the AfD doing?
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The audience is apparently almost exclusively sympathizers of the party. Siegesmund calls for a "mobility guarantee", it is one of her key campaign topics. She talks about climate protection in agriculture and promotes cohesion in society.
A man asks about contaminated sites from a former landfill, another finds that the Greens would neglect biodiversity through wind energy because insects and birds are hit by the rotor blades and die. The questions sound as if they came almost exclusively from root voters.
The Greens obviously have a hard time scoring outside their ancestral milieu.
In their core area, they can show some success: Siegesmund has passed the first climate protection law in an East German state in Thuringia, and she has the "Green Belt", the former inner German border, declared a "national natural monument". Both projects, which would have been difficult to implement with the CDU and the FDP.
How would that be, in a possible Zimbabwe coalition?
"If I had the impression that we could not implement what is important to us in the government but only manage it, I would not be personally available," says Siegesmund.
Maybe the candidate will soon have to prove how serious she is.
