Greens' Election Hopes Hitting East German Wall

Berlin, June 9 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 9th Jun, 2021 ) :Long popular in western cities, Germany's Greens are bumping up against a wall with voters in the ex-communist east that could cost them the chance to snatch Chancellor Angela Merkel's crown when she retires this year.

The now 40-year-old centre-left ecologist party will gather from Friday for a congress to plot the course toward September's general election after a bruising performance last Sunday in Saxony-Anhalt state.

The poor vote showing cemented an image of lost momentum for the party, which for the first time in its history is staking a claim to the chancellery.

"The Greens are still both: potentially the strongest political force in the country and a small niche party, depending on the place, time and situation," news weekly Der Spiegel said.

Despite ambitions for a double-digit result, the Greens notched up just six percent in the country's poorest state -- less than a point higher than their 2016 score.

"It wasn't what we had hoped," admitted a dejected Annalena Baerbock, also 40, the Greens' chancellor candidate.

"Some of our messaging on climate protection failed to cut through to the voters," she said, despite devastating droughts in the rural region in recent summers.

"In the east, which is still marked by the shock of reunification, potentially costly ecological measures are not a big draw for voters," political scientist Hajo Funke told AFP.

The election handed Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) a resounding win with 37 percent of the vote, pushing the far-right AfD into a distant second place with 21 percent.

The strong outcome put wind in the sails of CDU leader Armin Laschet, Baerbock's main opponent to run Europe's top economy after 16 years of Merkel at the helm.