Away from the label “Verbotspartei”: Greens try it with optimism


Away from the label “prohibition party”
Greens try it with optimism

From Frauke Niemeyer

It’s time for the Greens: Election day in September is approaching, and the polls have recently continued to decline. The party itself can use the confidence on its election posters.

Finally getting back on the offensive – for weeks the Greens and their candidate for Chancellor Annalena Baerbock were permanently in the defensive position. Now the party that wants to challenge the Union must urgently set the issues itself. The presentation of the poster campaign for the federal election campaign should be a starting shot.

One problem that the Greens want to tackle aggressively is the tendency of political opponents to portray them as a “prohibition party”, as those who want to regulate everyday life in Germany. And that has always been an open flank for environmentalists. The 2013 proposal to introduce a meat-free “Veggie Day” in canteens once a week sparked such a wave of outrage among conservative media and politicians that the disappointing 8.4 percent in the election results were also attributed to this campaign.

New motto: “Ready because it’s you”

It is therefore important for the Greens in 2021 to exclude such a label from the outset as far as possible, even though goals such as a speed limit on German autobahns or greater restrictions on conventional agriculture mean more regulation. Nothing can be changed about such central political goals without betraying your own convictions. But you can start with the question of how the destination is transported. In the recent past, the Greens have dealt with “framing”, ie the possibility of controlling how a topic or a position is perceived and interpreted. You can tell from the election campaign.

The central motto “Ready because it is you”, introduced a while ago, conveys the assurance to the voters in the subtext: We do not want or ask anything about the already existing willingness of Germans to participate in goals such as climate protection or social issues Righteousness went beyond. According to this claim, the Greens only want to implement what many Germans already want.

With the poster campaign, which Michael Kellner, Federal Managing Director of the party, presented in Berlin on Monday, this message is now being continued and in some cases made more precise. “Our country can do a lot if you let it” is one of the slogans, “Economy and climate without a crisis” is another. Controversial positions are taken up and partly broken, such as “The speed limit will be lifted – on the data highway” or the saying “The auto industry is booming too, but now with the purity law”.

Optimism is the mood that the Greens want to spread before the general election on September 26th. According to their posters, the Greens want to achieve “trains, schools, internet – a country that simply works”, as well as “climate protection with effect: secure jobs” and the “climate-neutral market economy”, which is not demanded but “celebrated”.

At the end of the campaign, “sharpen personnel”

“It is a choice of direction in this Bundestag election, and we are challenging the Union,” said Kellner of the poster campaign, which does not explicitly state that the Greens are not only aiming for government participation for the first time, but also want to go to the Chancellery with Annalena Baerbock. The chancellor candidate can be seen on many posters together with her co-chairman Robert Habeck. In the end, the campaign will be further intensified in terms of personnel, said Kellner when asked.

From his point of view, postal voting will be particularly important in 2021. “I can well imagine that this time we will have a postal vote of over 50 percent,” said Kellner. In the last general election, the proportion was around 30 percent. Therefore, the “hot election campaign phase” will begin in mid-August, they will run their own site fence campaign, and there will also be an early online campaign. In addition, the party wants to address voters on their doorsteps and at information stands, if the pandemic situation allows.

With 117,000 members, the Greens still see themselves as an “underdog in this election campaign” compared to the Union and the SPD. In the election campaign, they will first have to repair damage. After an initial high in the polls following Baerbock’s election, the party fell back below 20 percent in recent weeks and thus far behind the Union. The pressure on the party was recently increased by allegations of plagiarism against Baerbock’s book “Now. How We Renew our Country”. Previously, a late registration of additional income and embellished information in the curriculum vitae of the top Greens had become public.

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