Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, was chosen on Sunday to represent the Greens in the race to become the country’s next chancellor early next year.
Habeck won an overwhelming 96.5 percent of votes during a Green Party conference in Wiesbaden. He will lead the party’s upcoming federal election campaign together with fellow Greens member and current Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Der Spiegel reported.
Incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz called a snap election for Feb. 23 after his coalition government, which comprises the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens and the economically liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), collapsed over disagreements on spending and a stimulus for Germany’s sputtering economy.
The Greens currently enjoy 11 percent support, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls, good for fourth spot behind the opposition Christian Democratic Union at 33 percent, the far-right Alternative for Germany (18 percent) and the SPD (16 percent).
After winning the Greens nomination, Habeck vowed to provide the German people with “an offer of confidence” in the party’s campaign, calling for a focus on innovation, social cohesion and education. “If we don’t just stare at the problems, but actively tackle them, we can solve them. That is what I stand for,” he wrote on X.
“All the disputes, all the compromises that we had to make [in the country’s three-way ruling coalition] are now gone,” Habeck added. “And now the parties are stepping forward with their own ideas. Now a lot can change on all fronts.”
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