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The date is fixed.

On April 19, Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck want to announce which of them is going to be the “candidate for Chancellor” in the Bundestag race.

According to the previous green schedule, the appointment could have been canceled later.

The previous party wording in this question was: The decision will be announced “when the trees are green again, sometime between Easter and Pentecost”.

This week, however, it was not decisive whether leaves were sprouting again on the trees in the Berlin zoo.

The fact that the Greens want to clarify the K question sooner rather than later has to do with the unclear K situation and the falling polls at the Union.

Above all, the Greens want to send a signal with the announcement of their candidate selection: The Union is fighting with the Union for first place, we Greens clarify this very harmoniously in the closest circle of the family.

Nervousness and hectic pace are spreading in the CDU and CSU, we Greens remain stable.

But, is this really the truth?

If you ask Green Party officials and MPs about their preferences on the K question, you will be fobbed off with punches these days.

Both are the best choices, it is said everywhere.

“I'm looking forward to April 19th.

It's going to be really good, ”tweeted Dieter Janecek, industrial policy spokesman for the Greens in the Bundestag.

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"How the two decide, it will be correct," said the deputy parliamentary group leader Agnieszka Brugger on a request from WELT.

The Rhineland-Palatinate member of the Bundestag Tobias Lindner puts it more drastically: "You don't seriously believe", Lindner writes, "that as a Green I let myself down to the level of this CDU / CSU chaos group and advance with personal preferences?"

Even in the federal states, at least officially, nobody wants to announce their preference for the future front man or woman.

"We have", so - one for all - the Lower Saxony state parliamentary group leader Julia Willie Hamburg, "unlike other parties, two candidates whose candidacy the whole party is happy about and who we stand behind." The party is "more closed than ever, and this is also reflected in the question of the candidacy for chancellor ”.

Rarely has so little been said among the Greens with so many comments.

"Regardless of who the decision is made on, it will be a good decision", explain the Hessian state chairmen Sigrid Erfurth and Philip Krämer.

The decision has already been made

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According to the Rhineland-Palatinate state association: “We have two extremely suitable candidates.” The parliamentary group leader of the Greens in the Baden-Württemberg state parliament, Andreas Schwarz, tells WELT: “Both Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck are trusted to take over the Federal Chancellery, and this not only from one's own party, but also from political competition.

The starting position couldn't be better. ”At least the Green MEP Reinhard Bütikofer proves humor:“ As a candidate for chancellor, I think Annalena Baerbock is better than candidate for chancellor Robert Habeck. ”

So far, only the green veteran Daniel-Cohn Bendit has been able to make a clear commitment (for Habeck), who has just published a corresponding article in "Die Zeit" with the political scientist Claus Leggewie.

In view of the complex challenges that the country is facing, but also in view of its integration power, which extends far beyond the green camp, Habeck is "the better candidate for Chancellor of the Greens".

But it will probably not come to that.

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According to WELT information, it will most likely not be Habeck, who takes into account non-party arguments, but Annalena Baerbock, who is pushing for confrontation with the political opponent, to lead the Greens as candidate for Chancellor in the federal election.

The 40-year-old Baerbock was, so it was said on Wednesday behind the green scenes, within the party, but also in business and the unions, much better networked, stable in terms of content and "able to make decisions even under high pressure" .

In addition, it would be very difficult to mediate within the Green Party if the man were given preference over the woman out of two candidates who were universally regarded as suitable.

With the Greens, rooted in the feminism movement of the 1980s, women traditionally have the first right of access to first place on the list when it comes to candidate lists.

A nomination of Habeck, party strategists fear, could endanger the unity of the party, which has been so carefully maintained in recent months and years.

And unity is the green order of the day.

It will be emphasized in the super election year at every opportunity that presents itself, so far it has been formidable.

Winfried Kretschmann has just won a historic election victory in Baden-Württemberg, the Greens are back in government in Rhineland-Palatinate, and in the next state election on June 6th in Saxony-Anhalt the party could double its result there and reach double digits.

One can in fact already assume today that the decision by Baerbock and Habeck will be announced “by mutual agreement” on April 19.

The fact that it is met by mutual agreement beforehand is of course a completely different topic.

A renunciation would be “a little prick in the heart”, Baerbock recently admitted in an interview with “Spiegel”.

It has long been clear: if Annalena Baerbock wants, she has the right to first access.

It has something to do with Green Party arithmetic, with the Greens' quota history.

In this specific case, however, it also has a lot to do with Annalena Baerbock.

When Robert Habeck took over as party chairman to inherit Cem Özdemir, there was initially no talk of a co-chairman Baerbock.

Habeck had sought the former leader of the Greens from Lower Saxony, Anja Piel.

She belonged to the left wing of the party, Habeck to the realos, so far everything was in the traditional green lot.

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Then Baerbock threw her hat in the ring, at her own risk and on her own account.

It won and thereby overturned the previous political structure in the green leadership.

The harmonious story of the green “dream couple”, as the two have been dubbed by many media outlets, actually began with a break.

Habeck was a secret favorite in the duo for a long time.

The "Stern" even celebrated him in 2019 with a Chancellor title page, in the polls he was long ahead of Co-boss Baerbock.

But now Baerbock is almost on par in the popularity curves.

She confidently performed television appearances and interviews, only recently in an ARD focus on the corona crisis;

right after the Chancellor.

This has recently led to the question of whether Baerbock can actually still say no.

What is important now is which “story” you associate with the respective candidacy, according to the party.

A candidate for Chancellor Habeck would radiate far beyond the party, it says.

It is rumored in green circles that Baerbock can be expected to achieve a result “around 18 percent”.

Habeck, on the other hand, could bring in “between 15 and 25 percent”.

In other words: Baerbock is considered a more stable candidate.

Habeck, who is sometimes weak in interviews, sometimes witty, is a risk candidate, with outbursts up and down.

A candidate for Chancellor Baerbock would compete against two male competitors from the Union and the SPD, a strong argument in itself after 16 years of Merkelism.

This is what the Greens election program looks like

The Greens want to move into the Chancellery.

For this they have now presented their election program.

But there is not only approval for this.

Criticism comes from the core electorate, among others.

Source: WELT / Erdmann Hummel

A decision in favor of Annalena Baerbock is likely to meet with a high level of approval in the party - and will initially be favorably accompanied by the Berlin press chorus.

At the moment, your internal chances are simply better than those of Habeck, who is said to have all the more ambitions for the top spot.

The fact that he only goes into the race as number two, "Robert" would have to digest with all the priced harmony, "it says in the party.

At the same time, it is emphasized that the process has so far been "fair and decent", which was not a matter of course in the past.

The person who withdraws will also continue to have great influence.

Whether a Green will actually move into the Chancellery after September 26th is of course a question that will not be decided by party strategists but by voters.

Until spring, the internal power planning - who gets which ministry - was largely based on a black and green template.

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At the turn of the year, Baerbock and Habeck also considered it highly likely that the Union would become the strongest party on September 26th and that one would have to join a coalition as a junior partner, albeit with a significantly better result than 2017 (8.9 percent).

It was said again and again that you compete as an “underdog” in the Chancellor's race.

But that is just changing.

The crisis in the Union is giving the Greens the upper hand, traffic light dreams are spreading - with a green Chancellery.

If the party were to achieve a double-digit result in Saxony-Anhalt on June 6th, it would be one step further.

But - would, would, could: There are still almost six months until the election.

The first three months of the super election year show how quickly politics can slide.

One thing is also certain: Should Baerbock compete, the result of September 26th would be her result.

You would be taking a risk.

You cannot quote victory or defeat.