En an hour before the Green Federal Minister of Economics intervenes in the final phase of the Lower Saxony election campaign on October 3, there are two posts on Twitter that quite aptly summarize part of the mood that Robert Habeck is currently encountering on social networks.
Tweet one reads: “I was now in the swimming pool and there they turned the water down by 2°C. It’s uncomfortably cool and you can’t stay in the water as long as usual. That made me angry. The terms #Habeck and lynching came to my mind.”
In tweet two it says: “If the #blackout comes, then these two criminals #habeck and #baeebock may be to blame for the deaths of thousands…and then God have mercy on them. Those affected will know no mercy.”
So perhaps it’s not surprising that Lower Saxony’s Greens actually hide the Vice Chancellor on his first and only appearance in the Lower Saxony election campaign. In front of his determined opponents, but as a result also in front of his significantly more numerous sympathizers and supporters. Habeck’s appearance in the Hanover football beer garden “Nordcurve” takes place – for safety reasons, as the Lower Saxony Greens explain – in a quasi-hybrid way.
The Economics Minister himself speaks to a few dozen hand-picked party members and a few journalists in the protected pub area of the beer garden.
After bag checks, the audience sits outside at the beer tables and can watch the minister’s performance on the big screen that normally shows the games of the local second division soccer team.
Habeck fans at the “Public Viewing” in the beer garden
Source: Ulrich Exner
The beer tables and the audience are in turn enclosed by privacy fences, in front of which a police line has been set up.
The police in front of the venue
Source: Ulrich Exner
The officials should ensure that those around 100 anti-Habeck demonstrators who alternately insulted the minister from across the street as “warmonger”, “traitor to the people” or “green fascist” during the approximately 90-minute event, the event and don’t get even closer to the Minister.
The Habeck opponents, who alternately described the Economics Minister as a “warmonger”, “traitor to the people” and “green fascists”.
Source: Ulrich Exner
Whistles and megaphones stay at a distance and only disturb the audience in the beer garden. Inside the pub on the “Nord curve”, with Habeck and the two green top candidates Julia Willie Hamburg and Christian Meyer, you can hardly hear any of the trilling and jeering.
It’s a bizarre election campaign scenario on this national holiday in Hanover. The Lower Saxony Greens event cost 15,000 euros because of the extensive security requirements of the Federal Criminal Police Office. According to top candidate Hamburg, this is also one of the reasons why the number of events with Berlin’s top Greens in this state election campaign is rather small.
Habeck explains the temporary reactivation of two nuclear power plants
Habeck’s hybrid appearance then has absolutely nothing to do with direct voter canvassing. If things go well, it will at least be possible to give the Lower Saxony election campaigners a little tailwind for the last week of the election campaign. You might also have a few serious green doubts about the traffic light government’s crisis policy, which is by far the most important issue in this Lower Saxony election campaign that is polarizing everyone.
Habeck, which makes sense given the external circumstances, first explains in detail to his party friends the reasons for his latest political swerve, the temporary reactivation of two nuclear power plants. The loss of 50 percent of the German energy supply due to the end of gas supplies from Russia. The problems with the French nuclear power plants, which would also only produce half of their actual electricity capacity.
One of these two failures alone, says Habeck, could have been compensated for. “However, both together really are an extreme challenge.”
So Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim would have to remain online for the time being. “If you say that’s not in my coalition agreement and that’s not why I actually became a minister, then you can’t be a minister. Of course you have to deal with the need of the day.” During his appearance, Habeck did not mention the third nuclear power plant that is still in operation in Lingen, Lower Saxony. It is scheduled to be shut down in December.
Maybe that’s why: Inside and outside, there is at least cautious applause for the explanations of the Economics Minister from the Lower Saxony Greens, which are traditionally particularly critical of nuclear power. However, Habeck would not be Habeck if he left it at the small details of nuclear politics. For him personally, and he also confesses this in Hanover, the extension of the nuclear power plant run times by three months is the smallest of the current problems anyway.
Robert Habeck surrounded by Hannover 96 jerseys
Source: dpa/Moritz Frankenberg
Of course he also has it one size bigger. Surrounded by the Hannover 96 jerseys hanging under the ceiling of the “North Curve”, Habeck draws his political arc. From the arms deliveries to Ukraine to the failures of the Merkel government and European cohesion back to Lower Saxony. Its ports, its agriculture, its renewable energies are “a key part” for the success of the transformation to a climate-neutral society.
Great applause for the Federal Minister of Economics, in the pub and in the beer garden. Only outside, behind the police line, outside the green election campaign bubble, the whistle continues. Next Sunday there will be elections in Lower Saxony. The Greens are currently at 17 percent, and the trend is falling.