Germany’s Habeck to Run as Green Party’s Chancellor Candidate

Kamil Kowalcze
·3-min read

(Bloomberg) -- German Economy Minister Robert Habeck confirmed he’ll run in the upcoming election as the Greens’ chancellor candidate, setting up a contest with Social Democrat incumbent Olaf Scholz and conservative opposition frontrunner Friedrich Merz.

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Habeck made the announcement Friday in a video posted on social media, including X, the platform formerly known as Twitter that he quit for five years before returning on Thursday.

“We must not assume that our liberal democracy is guaranteed forever, we have to fight for it and this fight is now,” Habeck said.

“That is why I have decided to run,” he added. “First, I ask my party to trust me to lead them into the next federal election, then you, the citizens of our country.”

Habeck stood aside to allow Annalena Baerbock to run as the Greens’ lead candidate in the last election in September of 2021. The party was leading in the polls through May of that year, hitting 28% support but ultimately getting just under 15% in the actual vote. Baerbock was blamed by some for the disappointing outcome.

Baerbock, the current Foreign Minister, has ruled out running again, saying that in times of crisis marked by Russia’s war on Ukraine and conflict in the Middle East, she wants to focus on her ministerial brief and not be distracted by campaigning.

The 55-year-old Habeck declared his candidacy two days after Scholz dismantled his ruling coalition with the Greens and the Free Democrats by firing Christian Lindner, the FDP chairman who was serving as his finance chief.

Scholz, who is staying on for the time being in a minority government with the Greens, initially said he wants the election scheduled for September 2025 brought forward to March.

He has since come under increasing pressure to submit to a confidence vote right away so that the ballot can be held in January.

He signaled Friday he’s open to discussing the timing of the election as long as opposition lawmakers back legislation he wants to pass before his term ends.

Merz’s CDU/CSU alliance is in prime position to recapture the chancellery after it lost narrowly to Scholz’s SPD three years ago.

Opinion polls put backing for the conservatives consistently above 30%, more than twice as high as the SPD with about 16% in third place. The far-right Alternative for Germany is second on around 18%, and the Greens fourth with about 11%.

A poll for public broadcaster ARD published Thursday showed that 40% of voters surveyed expressed satisfaction with Merz’s performance. Habeck scored 26% in second, followed by Lindner with 25% in third.

Scholz was sixth with 21%, behind Sahra Wagenknecht (23%) of the new far-left BSW party and the AfD’s Alice Weidel (22%).

Merz and Lindner ridiculed Habeck’s announcement. Merz told reporters it “certainly has a humorous element,” while Lindner wryly noted that Scholz’s government no longer has a parliamentary majority but includes two candidates for chancellor.

Before joining the federal government, Habeck was a co-leader of the Greens. Previously, he was a deputy premier in his home region of Schleswig-Holstein in northwestern Germany, overseeing energy, the environment and agriculture.

Habeck’s candidacy is set to be formally approved by the Greens at a party congress in Wiesbaden starting next Friday.

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