German Economy Minister Habeck Returns to X After Five Years
(Bloomberg) -- Following the collapse of Germany’s coalition government this week, Economy Minister Robert Habeck announced his return to X, saying social media platforms like Elon Musk’s shouldn’t be the domain of “loudmouths and populists.”
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Habeck marked his return to the platform formerly known as Twitter in a post late on Thursday saying he’s “back for good.” The move comes ahead of an expected announcement that the Green politician will become his party’s chancellor candidate in the coming election.
An hour later, he sent a second post saying: “It’s easy to leave places like this to the loudmouths and populists. But making it easy for yourself cannot be the solution. Not today. Not this week. Not at this time. That’s why I’m back on X.”
A snap election is in the cards in Germany after Chancellor Olaf Scholz this week fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner and said he’d seek a vote of confidence in January that could pave the way for early elections in March.
The chancellor is trying to stave off a fresh election until March to give his beleaguered party a chance to recover. Opposition leader Friedrich Merz and his conservative CDU/CSU alliance, which has a big lead in opinion polls, want the vote to happen sooner.
“The self-proclamation as candidate for chancellor with 9 percent voter approval certainly has a humorous part,” Merz told reporters. “The Greens will have to work that out with themselves and their voters.”
Merz’s CDU/CSU alliance is leading in opinion polls with more than 30% of the vote and would be in prime position to win an early ballot, restoring it to power after it lost to Scholz’s SPD three years ago.
The business-friendly FDP is currently polling as low as 3%, down from 11.5% in the 2021 national vote. The Greens are at about 11% in fourth, while a new far-left party — the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht — is fifth with roughly 8%.
A third, more cryptic video dispatch shows Habeck working on a paper at his desk while humming a song by German musician Herbert Groenemeyer’s Zeit, dass sich was dreht, or “time for something to change.” The post, bearing the words “different from here on,” has given rise to speculation Habeck, a member of the Green party, will announce his candidacy for German chancellorship in the next election.
--With assistance from Jenni Thier.
(Updates with expected announcement from Habeck in the second paragraph.)
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