The foreign politician Omid Nouripour is the new co-leader of the Greens.

At a digital party conference on Saturday, the 46-year-old received 621 votes.

Two competitors received a total of 77 votes. 

His goal is to advance the party in order to "be able to play a role again in the K-question," said the foreign policy expert on Saturday at a party conference in Berlin in his application speech for the co-party chairmanship.

The 46-year-old member of the Bundestag from Hesse belongs to the Realo wing.

He praised young party colleagues who did not let the hatred directed at them by political opponents get them down.

"We are the indomitable!" Nouripour shouted to the delegates, who were mostly connected digitally.

With his candidacy, he wants to motivate people with a migration background to get involved politically, said Nouripour, who was born in Iran.

The youngest party leader

Shortly before, Ricarda Lang, member of the Bundestag, had been elected the new co-chair. 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. Lang is the youngest party leader in the Green Party's more than 40-year history. She ran unopposed. The result has yet to be confirmed by postal ballot, which should happen by February 14th.

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.

“We really like it”

In her application speech, Lang called on the Greens to make the combination of climate protection and justice the basis of their policies. "We have to resolve the false contradiction between climate protection and social issues," she said. "We now have to prove that it is possible." Governing in the coalition with the SPD and FDP is not a punishment, but a great opportunity: "We are not only ready, we really want to." Giving confidence: "We stand for change, even in difficult times."

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 has since paid back the money.

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.