Status: 07/10/2021 9:00 a.m.
Allegations of plagiarism, a corrected résumé and additional income – the Green Chancellor candidate Baerbock has been criticized, poll numbers are falling. Nevertheless, the party sticks to it, as co-party leader Habeck made clear.
The Greens are apparently not thinking about an exchange of Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock. Co-party leader Robert Habeck told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that changing the candidacy to him was not an issue. “This is Kokolores,” says Habeck.
The Greens had only just elected Baerbock as their candidate for chancellor with almost one hundred percent. “Now it’s a matter of making the best of this leap of faith that the party has given them.” When asked “You never talked about a move? Never thought about it?” Habeck replied: “No. This is not a debate.” At the same time he said that there had been technical errors, which Baerbock had also admitted.
Baerbock is criticized because there are striking linguistic similarities to other publications in her book “Jetzt. How we renew our country”. It had previously become known that she had belatedly reported the party’s special payments to the Bundestag.
The party and candidate also had to correct information in Baerbock’s curriculum vitae. “These processes were surprising for everyone,” said Habeck. “If we had known that the work should have been more solid, the work would have been more solid.”
“Have to chalk our mistakes ourselves”
Habeck also stated that in the two months leading up to the election evening on September 26th, one could make it clear that “trust in the right politics should determine the vote”. He still sees great opportunities to “gain confidence in this precious commodity”.
Baerbock was proposed as a candidate for chancellor by the federal executive of the Greens in April and confirmed by the party congress in June. Co-party leader Habeck also had ambitions for the candidacy for chancellor, but then hesitated. He emphasized that it was clear that “with the proclamation of a candidate for chancellor a personalization sets in”.
The Greens had hoped to be able to use this personalization to put their issues forward. “In this respect we have to blame ourselves for our mistakes.” It is not the job of others to “protect us from it. Our opponents are allowed to criticize us. It is an election campaign”.
“Not a masterpiece”
Habeck also protested against the impression that the race for the Chancellery was over. “Nothing went,” he emphasized. The last few weeks were “not a masterpiece”. “But we are still in very good shape – good enough to have a brilliant election campaign with friendliness and joy and the ease of summer.”
At the same time, Habeck took an offensive approach to the political competition. For example, he described the Union’s campaign as an “illustration of dubiousness”. The Union said it wanted to protect the climate and create new jobs, but had badly damaged the solar industry and slowed down wind energy.