Current polls consistently put it at more than 20 percent of the national vote, which in Germany’s increasingly fragmented parliament could be enough to lead a coalition.Commentators often portray them as one-issue parties, and any success they have is largely interpreted as a direct result of climate change rising on the political agenda.In the changing political space in Western Europe — which now strongly revolves around questions such as immigration, gender equality, LGBT rights and international integration — Green parties represent a broad progressive agenda.Combining economically left-wing and culturally progressive positions, the German Greens can be considered the opposite of the radical right Alternative for Germany (AfD).For people who care about progressive policies on questions from immigration to gender equality, the German Greens provide a much clearer offer than, for example, the social democratic SPD.Preoccupied by this debate, the party has paid less attention to the fact that it has lost its appeal to new social milieus and younger cohorts. .
Germany's Greens were riding high in the polls but fell from grace
Her party, as well as her opponents, have also said she has been unfairly treated by the media and has been the victim of sexist coverage, being the subject of erroneous news online and being asked by journalists how she would cope with motherhood and the chancellorship were the Greens to win the election outright.Such a prospect is looking vanishingly thin now, however, with the Greens slipping in voter polls and having failed to get a boost following devastating floods in Germany which were largely attributed to climate change. .
Voters love the Greens' message more than ever – but it may not
The Greens have long battled against the perception they’re the radical fringe or the electoral ingenues of Australian politics.Although the electoral and political context is more amenable to the Greens’ message than ever before, it may not translate into a dramatically improved vote.The party’s commitment to a net zero carbon economy is unchanged, but it’s more adept at foregrounding the importance of a transition “plan” and guaranteeing affected communities won’t be left behind.In addition to the usual problem of visibility in an electoral context dominated by the two major parties, compounding the situation for the Greens is Clive Palmer’s extraordinary media advertising purchase power, and the fascination with the “teal” independents.If current trends are any indication, the Green vote won’t surge (with the possible exception of stronger growth in Queensland) but will remain stable at 10-11%.Read more: The Wentworth Project: polling shows voters prefer Albanese for PM, and put climate issue first in 'teal' battle.We don’t have much federal data on this but based on the distribution of Liberal preferences in the seat of Melbourne in 2013, the overwhelming majority of these votes transferred to Labor.Yet more recent state electoral data indicates the Greens can also emerge as the main beneficiaries of the votes of excluded Liberal candidates.Of course, there are still a lot of unknowns, such as the actual size of Labor’s much vaunted swing and in which states and seats, as well as the lower house preference strategies of the major parties.In spite of the Greens’ optimism, its sluggish ad spend in most of their targeted lower seats suggests they’re quite cautious about their prospects. .
Merkel's party wins big in crunch state election as Greens 'hype' fades
Germany's ruling Christian Democratic Union has made something of a political comeback, after a striking win in a regional election on Sunday, according to exit polls.The CDU looks to have retained the eastern state of Saxony Anhalt, surging ahead in the regional vote and staving off a challenge from the far-right Alternative for Germany party.The win is seen a boost for CDU leader Armin Laschet in what was the final regional vote before the country decides who will replace Merkel on September 26."Much of the Green hype that we've seen over the past seven weeks, since they picked Annalena Baerbock as their candidate (for chancellor) has simply been overdone," Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg, told CNBC Monday. .
How Green-Party Success Is Reshaping Global Politics
Greens are now seeing their support grow in many countries as climate becomes a top issue among voters, but the implications for the future of global politics are unclear.Greens are now seeing their support grow in many countries as climate becomes a top issue among voters, but the implications for the future of global politics are unclear.Greens are now seeing their support grow in many countries as climate becomes a top issue among voters, but the implications for the future of global politics are unclear.Their entrance into mainstream politics, especially in Europe, gave them significant influence but revealed divisions over nonviolence, energy policy, and economics.Greens around the world have evolved from single-issue environmentalists into broad-based political parties capable of winning elections and serving at the highest levels of government.With climate change a pressing issue and traditional parties losing support to various alternatives, greens are positioned to play a greater role than ever.In Germany, the world’s fourth-largest economy, they hold some of the government’s highest positions, including the foreign ministry, and have been at the forefront of pressing for stronger Western support for Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s invasion.Yet the movement remains divided over issues such as nuclear energy, military force, foreign policy, and cooperation with right-wing and populist parties.Green political parties reflect a broader social movement seeking to reorient civilization in what supporters say are more sustainable and humane directions.Their environmental concerns began with opposition to nuclear power but have expanded to include climate change, pollution, and industrial agriculture.With greens poised to play the role of kingmaker in some of the world’s most influential countries, their choices could increasingly shape public policy and the future of democracy.According to Freedom House, a pro-democracy watchdog group based in Washington, DC, the world is fifteen years into a “democratic recession.” For CFR Senior Fellow Yascha Mounk, rising populism is fueled by declining living standards and dysfunctional institutions.Experts say a succession of shocks—including the global economic crisis that began in 2008, a spate of high-profile terrorist attacks, and a wave of migration from the Middle East and North Africa beginning in 2015—stoked voters’ defections from centrist parties to alternatives on the left and right.Some analysts argue that they are uniquely positioned to win disaffected voters away from the far right—especially as, in the case of Germany’s greens, they have in many areas tacked to the center, supporting international institutions such as the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance.In one example of flexibility, Austria’s greens have formed a coalition with the conservative People’s Party, resulting in a government platform that combines anti-immigration and tax-cutting policies with some of Europe’s most ambitious climate targets.The “New Left” and student movements of 1968 broke with earlier forms of class-based worker organizing, preferring instead radical critiques of industrial civilization itself and utopian visions of life in harmony with nature.The UK’s PEOPLE Party was the first in Europe, drawing on the ideas of an influential environmental text that warned of imminent ecological collapse, A Blueprint for Survival, which was cosigned by several dozen high-profile British scientists.Greens have won hundreds of local and state elections and now count some 250,000 registered members, but they struggle to make a mark in a national arena dominated by the two major parties.Africa has seen a range of environmental activism, including the Green Belt Movement led by Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, but few electoral gains.Greens have long been internally divided, leading to leadership struggles, splintering parties, and ongoing debates over how to capitalize on growing popularity.The latter were exemplified by West German green-party founder Petra Kelly, who saw it as an “anti-party party” but whose vision largely lost out to the moderates, especially since Fischer’s 1998 entrance into government.Mirroring earlier debates between activists and pragmatists, some greens maintain more radical critiques of endless economic growth, consumerism based on energy-intensive trade and supply chains, and technological approaches to climate change.Green parties emphasize disarmament and nonviolent conflict resolution, if not total pacifism, a stance that has been tested by their involvement in government policy.There is a small but persistent right-wing brand of green politics that pairs environmental protection with nationalism, skepticism about government, and dissension from left-wing approaches to immigration, secularism, and social liberalism.Still, experts say their relevance remains low in Southern and Eastern Europe, where growth is slow and unemployment high, and in many rural areas across the continent.Some of those concerns were exemplified by the monthslong Yellow Vests protests in France, which were sparked by an environmentally motivated increase in the country’s fuel tax that fell hardest on lower-income workers.Green-party leaders say they have learned lessons from the Yellow Vests and pledge strong redistributive policies to ensure climate efforts don’t disproportionately burden the poor.While German politics have been unsettled by many of the broader trends shaping the continent, including the rise of formerly fringe parties, experts say the greens now represent stability and continuity rather than the antiestablishment radicalism of the 1980s.Now, however, the party that once advocated for dismantling the German army and ending the arms trade is at the forefront of plans to sharply increase military spending and send defensive weapons to Ukraine.German greens had long warned about the country’s reliance on Russian energy and opposed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would have deepened that dependence.That pipeline has been halted and Berlin is now seeking an abrupt pivot away from Russian gas, which could delay progress toward climate goals by increasing coal use. .
Senate may have a progressive majority as Greens and David
While election night coverage was mostly focused on the House of Representatives, there has been a significant shift to the left, potentially setting up a progressive Senate majority, unlike the deadlock experienced by the first Rudd government.They appear to have gained a seat in Queensland, ousting LNP senator Amanda Stoker, and in South Australia from the former Centre Alliance independent bloc.The most interesting result is in the Australian Capital Territory, where former Wallaby David Pocock is narrowly behind Liberal senator Zed Seselja on primary votes, 23.4% to 22.1%.While the successes for minor parties and independents in the House of Representatives were more dramatic, a record crossbench in the Senate may prove almost equally significant.There were 18 crossbenchers in the Senate elected in 2013, but the current results suggest there may be as many as 19 in the next parliament, reducing the major parties to their lowest ever share of seats. .
Kurz Wins Austria Election. Will He Turn to Far Right or Greens to
The party’s decision to call a no-confidence vote against Mr. Kurz in May, ushering in a caretaker government, led to acrimony between the center-right and center-left that analysts said made a potential coalition between the two unlikely. .
Australian Greens hope election focus on climate will bring their
In the three years since the last federal election, Australia has experienced its worst bushfire season, a succession of catastrophic floods, and ongoing drought.This could happen despite the Greens receiving less media attention than in previous years, with the battle for inner-city seats in Melbourne and Sydney dominated by independent candidates – who have also been fielding the majority of questions on how they would respond to a hung parliament.Kevin Bonham, a psephologist, says the stronger vote is likely to be a result of Labor dialling down its climate policies than any new campaign strategy of the Greens.Bonham says that while the polls may overstate Greens support, the party has a reasonable chance of picking up additional Senate seats, although South Australia was less likely.Failure to gain any Senate seats or increase the party’s primary vote in targeted seats will be a sign that the campaign needs to change, says associate Prof Kate Crowley, an academic at the University of Tasmania who has written extensively on the Greens as partners in minority government.Bandt announced a shortlist of demands in the event of a Labor minority government at the Greens campaign launch earlier this week.At a campaign launch in Brisbane this week he announced a shortlist of demands that the Greens would have in the event of a Labor minority government.Bandt says it would be the “toughest area of discussion”, but one that the International Energy Agency has said is necessary to keep global heating within safe limits.“I think it will be very difficult for the next government, especially if they want to host a global climate summit in Australia, to continue to back new coal and gas projects.Also on the list are raising the jobseeker rate, free childcare and progress on “all elements” of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which Labor has already committed to. .
Analysis: Germany's Greens get the blues ahead of hoped-for
A thumping by the conservatives in a regional election on Sunday rounded out a brutal couple of weeks for the ecologists that saw their squeaky-clean image tarnished by a bonus payment scandal and their suggestion that Germany should arm Ukraine.With their eye on Germany's chancellery for the first time in their 40-year history, the Greens are suddenly having to grow up fast to handle an assault from Angela Merkel's conservatives, stepped-up social media attacks and creeping pressure from Russia against their support for Ukraine and clean energy.Projecting change, youth and vitality after 16 years of Merkel rule, the Greens surged ahead of her conservatives in polls for the Sept. 26 election when they picked Annalena Baerbock to run for chancellor.Losing their poll lead, Greens activists are frustrated, insiders say, by Baerbock's failure to declare to parliament a Christmas bonus paid to her by the party - a scandal that makes it look as grubby as more established rivals.The Centre for Liberal Modernity, a foundation set up by two senior Green politicians, was banned from Russia last month, shortly after Habeck spoke out on Ukraine."Until we were declared an undesirable foreign organisation, our biggest project with Russia was on climate and economic modernisation," said Ralf Fuecks, the centre's founder and one-time mayor of Bremen.The Greens, who loudly oppose the Nord Stream 2 project to pump Russian natural gas direct to Germany under the Baltic Sea, are by a wide margin the Kremlin's least favourite German party.In a sign of the higher stakes in play, the Greens have put a special rebuttal unit on standby to receive activists' reports of memes that appear to come from hostile social media campaigns, one party official said.At home, the Greens are being hammered by other parties and conservative media for their calls to raise fuel taxes and to impose speed limits on Germany's famously no-limits motorways.The Greens will stick to values-based policies, the senior official said, quoting Michelle Obama's 2016 slogan for exercising restraint in the face of vilification by Republican rivals: "When they go low, we go high.".
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Annamie Paul's Greens can turn page on party turmoil with a few
Last month, as speculation about an early federal election call was building, Green Party Leader Annamie Paul told the world that she was ready for the fight.Court documents revealed Paul moved in July to stop the party from holding a confidence vote on her leadership and reviewing her membership.An arbitrator quashed an effort by what Paul said was a "small group" of people within the party to force her to give up the reins.Which explains why losing just one of those seats — when Fredericton MP Jenica Atwin crossed the floor to the Liberals in June — stung so deeply.Atwin's victory in 2019 gave the party a federal beachhead in Atlantic Canada, where Greens have been elected provincially in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.Paul's political adviser at the time, Noah Zatzman, took to Facebook in May to accuse politicians — including unnamed Green MPs — of displaying antisemitism.Former Green Party leader Elizabeth May told The Tyee the decision not to immediately reprimand and remove Zatzman spurred Atwin's defection.O'Byrne, a lawyer and professor at the University of New Brunswick, told CBC she feels her campaign has momentum in Fredericton, where people are "used to voting Green.".O'Byrne said she is confident that Paul can express a vision for tackling the climate emergency along with Indigenous reconciliation, criminal justice reform and a housing crisis she said has now hit her province.Andrew Enns, executive vice-president of the polling firm Leger, said the Green Party has "plumbed new depths in … backstabbing and front-stabbing the leader" — leaving it in an awkward spot just as it prepares to ask Canadians for their votes.Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner told CBC he supports Paul's leadership and believes her voice is needed in politics."I certainly encourage any of my cousins in the federal party to reconcile their differences and move forward because there's never been a more important time for Green voices in Parliament," he said. .
