The chairman of Germany’s Green Party, Felix Banaszak, views his party’s poor performance in the local elections in the country’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia on Sunday as a result of a fundamental political shift.
“Ecological, progressive politics are currently having a hard time,” Banaszak said on regional public broadcaster WDR.
For the Greens, he said, it is now important to embody a “credible alternative to this fundamental rightward pressure in society.”
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The question, he added, is: “Who gives people hope and confidence, who do not want to just stand by and watch everything drift in such a direction as we are experiencing in the US?”
According to an initial forecast, the Greens suffered significant losses in the local elections and can expect 11.5% of the votes statewide. Last time around in 2020, the party achieved its best local election result with 20%.