With his Corona model project "Opening with Safety", the mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer, was able to regain ground in his city and, above all, in his party in the past few months.
He sat a lot on talk shows - and the Green Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann, who had made the project one of the country, should have been satisfied.
Kretschmann still counts Palmer among the best politicians in his national association.
In the meantime, he was even considered the ideal candidate for the state environment ministry.
Rudiger Soldt
Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.
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On Friday, however, the rehabilitation program for Boris Palmer got out of step, as so often because of a critical posting on social media.
On Friday, Palmer published the post on Facebook: “The Aogo is a bad racist.
Offered his n ***** tail to women. "Palmer spells out the word.
Racist statements for educational purposes?
Originally, the post is said to come from a woman who accuses former national soccer player Dennis Aogo of molesting her friend in a sexually suggestive manner while on a trip to Mallorca. Aogo is said to have used the expression himself. Palmer obviously wanted to demonstrate how absurd accusations of racism could be if a German-Nigerian footballer were declared a racist on the basis of such a statement. At the same time, of course, Palmer also used a racist statement, but from his point of view, if you will, for educational purposes.
The original reason for the debate on social media was another statement by Aogo.
At the beginning of the week, he had spoken as a football commentator on a Champions League broadcast of “Training to the point of gassing”, but then asked for an apology.
Boris Palmer's negligent posting immediately put his party in a state of turmoil: the green candidate for Chancellor Annalena Baerbock already distanced herself on Saturday morning.
She called the approach of the mayor of Tübingen "racist" and announced consequences and an expulsion process.
The discussion about Palmer's postings could be an early setback for the Greens in the federal election campaign.
Palmer speaks of "cancel culture"
Palmer's behavior also became a topic for the digital green state party conference in Baden-Württemberg. The green delegates actually wanted to adopt the new coalition agreement for the future green-black state government in great harmony. With the approval of the green state chairmen Sandra Detzer and Oliver Hildenbrand, a delegate submitted an initiative request to expel Palmer. The motion received a clear majority: 161 delegates voted in favor, 44 rejected the motion, and there were eight abstentions.
Because Palmer is also considered an annoying troublemaker by some Realos, and others perhaps wanted to harm him because he is a confidante of the Prime Minister, the conflict escalated to the maximum - it would have been possible to examine the case first and only in a further step to demand a party expulsion process.