German FAZ: Brantner and Banaszak elected as new chairmen008194

The new federal chairwoman of the Green Party, Franziska Brantner, described it as her party’s task to make Germany and life in it better – and demanded: “We need investments, investments and even more investments.” She said in her application speeches on Saturday lunchtime the Federal Delegates Conference: “Tightening your belt doesn’t help if you’re already missing your pants.” She said: “Germany can do more.” There should be no further “standstill Groko” after the next election. This requires strong Greens. Brantner called on her party to go into the election campaign with confidence and rejected the constant criticism of the Greens. “I’m tired of everything that doesn’t suit others being chalked up to us as an ideology,” she said. Brantner received 78 percent of the delegate votes, she had an opposing candidate. Otherwise unknown competitors ran in the election. The 45-year-old Brantner comes from Baden-Württemberg and most recently worked as Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics under Minister Robert Habeck; she belongs to the Realo wing and is considered a close confidant of the prospective candidate for chancellor. Before the previous federal executive board announced its withdrawal after the catastrophic results in the European elections and the state elections in the east, it had already been leaked that Brantner was to move to the party headquarters as campaign manager for Habeck. Now she will be bringing the headquarters together with Felix Banaszak. The left-wing party leader Andreas Audretsch will be the campaign manager. After Brantner, Duisburg’s Banaszak was also elected with almost 93 percent of the vote. The member of the Bundestag from North Rhine-Westphalia welcomed the delegates with the words: “Welcome to a new time!” He described his candidacy as “perhaps the craziest decision of my life”, but he really wanted to do it. In his speech, the representative of the left wing primarily campaigned for social improvements for children, refugees and people with lower incomes. His speech was about “fear” as a way of life for many: fear of Trump, fear of the gas bill, fear of the walk home. Empathy helps against this. “Let’s be there and make things possible.”Banaszak: Internal party discussions are a sign of livelinessThe present is not a place of divine providence, but of human action and that is why it can be made better. That’s what the Greens wanted. It fills him with pride that the Greens, Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock in the top team, can also allay the fears of the steel workers in the Ruhr area. He will “campaign for every vote, in the corner bar in Duisburg” and everywhere else. Banaszak praised the discussions within the party as a sign of liveliness. He “can’t imagine anything better than going into the election campaign with the Greens – let’s take off our hats Come on, let’s take the thermos flask with us, let’s get going!”  Following him, a few other Green politicians appeared who wanted to run for office, one had only applied minutes before the ballot. A total of seven men stood for the position of co-speaker. They took the opportunity to briefly present their very personal ideas about green politics on a large stage. These applications played no role in the outcome of the election. Ricarda Lang said goodbye. The party conference also wanted to continue its work after the board elections and discuss further applications on topics such as social justice and asylum and migration policy, although the party conference management initially successfully managed to postpone conflicts, to bundle hundreds of amendments into just a few. For example, only approximate information was given about wealth tax and nothing was said about possible general service obligations. This also applied to Israel and Gaza, a topic that causes heated, often anti-Semitic debates at schools and universities, but was not discussed at the party conference. In the morning, Ricarda Lang also said goodbye to the federal executive board of the Greens. Climate activist Luisa Neubauer first spoke about this, saying about young women in politics and also in the Green Party: “Then you are guaranteed nothing, except that you are guaranteed to do it wrong.” As young women, you are hated one way or another about this On the one hand, one should talk continuously, “but please don’t bother anyone with it.” Lang, now 30 years old, was the youngest chairwoman of a governing party in the history of the Federal Republic. And she was exposed to personal hostility like no other female politician in the country. Even at the party conference, she was always accompanied by strong police protection. The officers of the Federal Criminal Police Office were the first to whom she thanked for protection and patience in her farewell speech. Scholz and Merz are “men of yesterday and the day before yesterday.” Lang then brought a kind of guide for better politics to the party conference. It’s not about “making politics to make us feel better, but to make people’s lives better.” Democracy is in a deep crisis, one reason is the “hyperinfantilization of politics,” which believed that it was only about better explaining what was right and often treated voters like children. “More and more bigger, more and more pompous,” but at the same time more and more distant from people’s everyday problems, the Greens have also presented themselves as democracy saviors. This style, which primarily characterized the Greens’ anti-fascist European election campaign, did not bring in any support for the Democrats. According to Lang, they should not behave as “vacuum cleaner representatives of democracy”. Ricarda Lang resigns: Her first thanks go to the bodyguardsReutersThe Chancellery – meaning Olaf Scholz (SPD), according to Lang, has recently “pursued a policy of lack of consequence” and told people that there is a “turning point”, but everything remains the same Olds. In her speech with a view to the war in Ukraine, Brantner thanked Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock for opposing the “trials and confusions” of the Chancellery on this issue. Lang described the Chancellor as “yesterday’s man”, his competitor from the Union, Friedrich Merz, is “from the day before yesterday” and Robert Habeck is the candidate for today and tomorrow. Lang said: “I never want to hear again after election day that we just have to explain politics better.” Lang said in a speech that was repeatedly interrupted by long applause, she had temporarily turned into a “speaking robot”. “I no longer knew who I was and the Greens no longer knew who they were.” People have “communicated too much in their own bubble” and not with the citizens. More on the topic According to Lang: “We can mess with the middle of society as long as we are perceived as an elite project.” You Previous co-chairman Omid Nouripour had already said goodbye on Friday.
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