In the general election, many young activists for the Greens could move into parliament.
A scenario with potential for conflict.
Berlin - Almost four months before the federal election in 2021, the Greens get between 24 and 28 percent of the vote in the current polls and are at least on an equal footing with the Union.
Even if four months in politics represent half an eternity and the Sunday questions only reflect the current mood in Germany, the probability has never been higher that the Greens will move into the Federal Chancellery for the first time with Annalena Baerbock.
Federal election 2021: The Greens could have twice as many MPs as in 2017
But the Greens could also stir up the Bundestag properly.
In the last federal election, the Greens received 8.9 percent of the vote and thus moved into the Bundestag as the smallest parliamentary group behind AfD, FDP and Left.
Thus, the party has 67 MPs in the current legislative period.
A value that could more than double from September onwards.
And it is precisely here that a huge potential for conflict within the party can be identified.
Because there are more candidates on the lists of the Greens, whose previous political career has mainly taken place as activists in various movements that have not always been benevolent at least to the black-red government.
For example, the Mönchengladbach district association is sending Kathrin Henneberger into the race as a direct candidate.
The 34-year-old former spokeswoman for the Green Youth worked as the press spokeswoman for the anti-coal power movement “End of Terrain” between 2018 and 2019.
The Greens: Activists are pushing into the Bundestag - potential for conflict within the party
Julian Pahlke and Marcel Emmerich, two activists from the constituencies of Unterems and Alb-Donau-Kreis, want to move into the Bundestag who are involved in various organizations for sea rescue in the Mediterranean and want to pursue this commitment in parliament in the future. You represent a number of activists from various movements who are on the list of the Greens. In the Bundestag, these “young savages” could then meet the long-established part of the party, which had already been confronted in recent years with the hard and mostly cumbersome nature of parliamentary work.
Not only the activists of the "Fridays for Future" movement, who are running for the Greens, are demanding that the 1.5-degree target be adhered to.
A demand that could be difficult to achieve through the election manifesto of the Greens alone and that seems even less feasible in a black-green coalition led by the Union.
A turn in asylum policy, as demanded by Pahlke and Emmerich, among others, would be difficult to implement in a black-green coalition.
In an interview with
Tagesspiegel
,
Pahlke demanded,
among other things, “legal entry routes” for refugees in order to end the current “inhumane policy”.
The Greens: parliamentary group facing split?
- "Hard encounter with reality"
"For some, this will be a tough encounter with reality," an unnamed Green MP told
Business Insider,
referring to the new MPs
. Especially in the role of a ruling party, the Greens would have to be far more satisfied with compromises than the election campaign as a controlling and criticizing opposition party would suggest. “Government discipline” is required of the young MPs, the Green MP continued. A trait that is probably difficult to combine with the progressive mindsets of some candidates and activists.
A possible split in the Bundestag faction could be the result of the federal election in 2021. Progressive activists, who are pushing for change with their demands, on the one hand, and established MPs who have already adjusted their political goals to parliamentary reality, on the other. A constellation that provides a lot of explosive fuel, especially when it comes to the core issues of the Greens, and could lead the party into an acid test at the height of its success.
(fd)