Palmer told the Greens-Stadtverband Tübingen in a letter that the German Press Agency has received that he will not take part in the nomination process because of the beginning of the party exclusion process against him. “It is logically and factually impossible to operate a process for nomination and disqualification at the same time,” writes Palmer. Palmer left open whether he could run as an independent candidate or for another party.
The final trigger for the exclusion process was a Facebook post by Palmer about the former German national football player Dennis Aogo, in which the mayor uses the so-called N-word. This term is used today to describe a racist term for black people that was used in Germany in the past. Palmer said his statement was meant to be ironic.
The Greens leadership sees the incident only as part of a “long list of calculated slips and staged taboo breaches”. For example, Palmer takes positions on migration policy that are more likely to be found in the conservative camp. During the 2015 refugee crisis, he said that Germany “doesn’t have room for everyone”. In 2017 his book titled “We can’t help everyone” was published. In 2019 he criticized an advertising campaign by Deutsche Bahn because it only showed people with a migration background.
Palmer has been in office since 2007 and was re-elected in 2014 with 61.7 percent of the vote. With the climate protection campaign “Tübingen makes blue” he reduced CO2 emissions, he expanded cycle paths and local transport, created new childcare places, and on Saturdays, thanks to Palmer, the people of Tübingen can ride the bus for free. The university town of Tübingen is located south of Stuttgart in Baden-Württemberg, a heartland of the German Greens.