The Greens have a new boss – even if the online voting result still has to be confirmed by postal vote. Ricarda Lang replaces Annalena Baerbock.
Ricarda Lang, member of the Bundestag, was elected the new leader at the online party conference of the Greens. According to party information, the 28-year-old received 75.93 percent of the votes cast on Saturday. 552 delegates voted yes, 137 voted no, and there were 38 abstentions.
The result has yet to be confirmed by postal ballot, which should happen by February 14th. The Greens are traditionally led by a dual leadership. The foreign politician Omid Nouripour wanted to become party leader alongside Lang, and the vote on this was also scheduled for Saturday.
Due to a corona infection, Lang was unable to speak on the stage in the Berlin Velodrom, where a manageable group of top Greens was gathered. The several hundred delegates were connected online. The new party leader replaces Annalena Baerbock, who led the party together with Robert Habeck for four years and, as foreign minister, cannot remain party leader according to the Greens’ statutes.
So far, the party left Lang has been deputy leader and women’s policy spokeswoman for the Greens and has therefore been part of the federal executive board since 2019. She was also involved in that controversial decision in winter 2020, with which the board approved corona bonuses of 1,500 euros for all employees of the federal office – and thus also for themselves.
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Lang comes from near Stuttgart and after the election in September he became a member of the Bundestag for the first time. To date, she has been particularly involved in social and health policy as well as for equality. From 2017 to 2019 she was head of the youth organization Green Youth.