After the House of Representatives election: Greens in Berlin-Mitte are calling for a ballot

The Greens in the Mitte district, the largest district association of the Berlin Greens, are calling for consequences from the party's weak performance in the House of Representatives election on Sunday. An official resolution by the district members' meeting did not go so far as to exclude current leading members such as the top candidate duo Werner Graf and Bettina Jarasch from future Senate positions. This was what a paper circulating before the meeting called for, and it was also heard from a Green city councilor.

The Greens in Mitte are also pushing to set up a search committee for Senate positions. All around 17,500 members should be able to decide on their personnel proposal, as well as on a coalition agreement, in a ballot. The federal party demonstrated this in 2021, according to the text of the resolution. There has never been such a membership decision in the Berlin regional association.

Such a decision-making process would also increase the chances of a CDU-led Kenya coalition as an alternative to a left-wing alliance. According to previous planning, a state party conference will again decide on the draft of an alliance agreement after the explorations and coalition talks that are now underway. At the party conference, however, the left wing of the Greens has a majority of delegates and would find it extremely difficult to form an alliance with the Christian Democrats.

How the membership as a whole works, however, remains to be seen. At the SPD, whose state party conference is also dominated by the left wing of the party, the membership gave preference to a chairman duo from the conservative wing in a ballot in 2024.

The Green district members' meeting in Mitte also demands an independent and scientific evaluation of not only Sunday's election, but also the House of Representatives election in February 2023. Members from Mitte, but also from other district associations, have criticized several times in recent years that, from their point of view - the state executive committee saw it differently - a real evaluation and analysis did not take place.

Another point of criticism has been that the Greens would not exploit their potential as voters if they did not open themselves up more to middle-class circles. “18.4 percent is not the end,” said Tanja Prinz from the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district association, who unsuccessfully ran for state chairmanship in 2023, in a taz interview. She was referring to the election results at the time - that Sunday the Greens only achieved 14.3 percent and thus did significantly worse instead of growing.

In addition, the Center Greens are calling for “workshop discussions for the departure in 2031” – the year is determined by the date of the next regular House of Representatives election. These discussions should take place in the districts “in order to learn from the last campaigns”. In 2019, the CDU under its then chairwoman Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer tried to deal with the refugee crisis from 2015 onwards using the format of workshop discussions.