There are not pleasant months ahead for the Greens in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Some call it a disaster. Since late summer, the party has fought primarily against itself in the huge country. Against each other instead of with each other: The management staff in particular did not cut a good figure.
At the state party conference on Saturday in Schwerin there was also a lot of talk about the “deep wounds and injuries” that had been inflicted on each other. “The last few months have not been easy for any of us, personally and politically,” said state chairwoman Katharina Horn. The meeting in Schwerin was all the more intended to mark an end to the strenuous navel-gazing a good eight months before the state elections on September 20th.
Contrary to what was expected in advance, the mood among the around 100 delegates was quite friendly, and there was even laughter at times. Get up, arrange your crown, move on: “That has to be the motto now,” said Bundestag member and former Green Party state leader Claudia Müller to taz. Now the 44-year-old has also been the party’s top candidate for the state elections since Saturday and is therefore the new optimism representative of the Northeast Greens by office.
Strictly speaking, Müller is already the second top candidate that the regional association with just 1,700 members has chosen for the upcoming election. In September 2025, the Greens had already drawn up a corresponding list at a previous party conference. Constanze Oehlrich, the head of the five-member Green faction in the Schwerin state parliament, was elected first. That backfired.
Accusations and counter-accusations
Oehlrich, of all people, soon found himself at the center of the quarrels, which has plunged the regional association into its current crisis. There were allegations that she had harassed employees and abused her power. At the same time, allegations against MP Hannes Damm were making the rounds. He was also concerned with “inappropriate behavior” towards employees. The external impact was devastating.
Tabula rasa was done in the fall. Damm was kicked out of the parliamentary group by his Green colleagues in the Schwerin state parliament. In the case of Oehlrich, the state executive committee of the Greens again pulled the ripcord and in November presented Claudia Müller as the new top candidate-to-be – to be elected at a repeat party conference at which the previous state list was to be declared null and void.
It stands for “experience, clarity and, yes, a certain toughness,” Müller advertised on Saturday. This is clearly what the delegates wanted to hear. She received almost 90 percent of the votes, lots of applause and a bouquet of flowers, which is obligatory on such occasions.
However, the former top candidate Oehlrich, who was sawn off, was missing. She was ill, it was officially said. “I wouldn’t have done that to myself,” a delegate told taz on the sidelines of the party conference. She already had what she had to say last week anyway Ostsee-Zeitung stated on record: “A new election raises the fundamental question of how often we want to repeat democratic decisions until we like them.”
Candidacy for second place
The truth is that the promised new beginning through new elections is only reflected to a very limited extent in the list places that are likely to be in the state parliament in the event of a return to the state parliament. Because new list or not: apart from Claudia Müller in the top position, everything remained the same in the top places. That’s what the state executive wanted. That’s how it should happen.
The tableau was only briefly shaken up once by a fight for second place on the list, in which co-country boss Ole Krüger, the old place holder appointed by the board, was from Jana Klinkenberg, the former spokeswoman for the Green Party in the Rostock districtwas challenged. The party would need a “strong female dual leadership” in the election campaign, said Klinkenberg, before adding: “Of course you can decide on lists in advance. But are we here with the CDU?” It didn’t help. In the end, Krüger narrowly prevailed.
There is a lot at stake for the Greens in the state elections; they have to worry about getting back into parliament. The last poll saw the party at 5 percent. But this survey is already four months old. What’s more, it was raised before the internal discord became public. Claudia Müller is not impressed by this: “We will achieve the 5 percent in September.”
In the election campaign itself, it is also relying on the support of the western regional associations with large memberships within the framework of always still quite fresh eastern strategy of the federal Greens. Everyone in the party is aware of “how important the election in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is overall,” said Müller. There’s not much to see of it yet. Federal Chairman Felix Banaszak, whose name is closely linked to the Eastern Strategy, was not in Schwerin on Saturday, but was a guest at the Green Party conference in Hesse.