The Saxon Greens will elect a new executive committee at a party conference in Neukieritzsch next Saturday and want to look to the future. With the exception of Martin Helbig, none of the state executive board members are standing again, as outgoing party leader Marie Müser said in Dresden.
She expects an "extremely exciting party conference". There is a diverse field of candidates and a certain dynamic. She was delighted to see a very lively party with a great will to shape the future.
Three women and two men are running for the two state chair positions. Specifically, these are the Chemnitz Green Party district leader Coretta Storz, Nathalie Senf from the Zwickau district association and the former Saxon State Secretary Gesine Märtens from Leipzig.
In addition to Helbig, Wolfram Günther, who was Minister for the Environment, Climate Protection, Energy and Agriculture in Saxony during the last legislative period, is also running as a male candidate.
The two-day party conference will also include an evaluation of the Bundestag elections. Federal Chairman Felix Banaszak will be a guest on Saturday. Numerous motions have been submitted to the party conference - including an urgent motion in which the state association calls for the AfD to be banned.
According to Müser, the debate about a ban has been given new impetus by the classification of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The agency had recently classified the AfD nationwide as right-wing extremist, after this had already been the case for three state associations of the AfD, including the one in Saxony. The party is defending itself against this with an urgent appeal. Pending a decision by the competent administrative court in Cologne, the domestic intelligence service has put the new classification on hold and is therefore only listing the AfD as a so-called suspected case for the time being.
According to Müller, there is now a greater social interest in drawing consequences. There is a clear commitment to a ban procedure among the Saxon Green base. The motion is supported by a broad section of the party. "We have the AfD problem here, which affects us more than other state associations. We in Saxony believe that this must happen now."
Müser also addressed the mood of the Saxon Greens, which currently has 5,289 members. The party only received 5.1 percent of the vote in the state elections on September 1 and was heavily attacked by the CDU during the election campaign. In the end, it was not enough for the Greens to remain in government. The party would do well to put this behind it, said the outgoing party leader, referring to the many challenges.
Society is polarized, there is a charged atmosphere, said Müser. Liberal democracy is at a very decisive point. "Many of us in the party have understood that it is now a matter of solving these problems and getting involved in a constructive and critical way. That's why I think it's necessary for us to look ahead now." In the end, the CDU had harmed itself with its election campaign maneuvers at state and federal level. The CDU/CSU must realize that the aim now is to strengthen the democratic center instead of destabilizing it.
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