A week before the state election in Baden-Württemberg, CDU candidate Manuel Hagel launched strong criticism at Green Party top candidate Cem Özdemir and the Greens themselves. “Özdemir’s remarks are far from the convictions of his own party” Hagel told “Welt”. He said the Green candidate is promising things the party will never carry through, calling it dishonest. Adding further, Hagel accused Özdemir of mockingly claiming that the Greens “can drive a car” when “the fight against cars is right at the heart of the Green movement”. Hagel claimed that this rhetoric is actually a “fight against prosperity and jobs” and that Özdemir is trying to rebrand the Greens as another car‑centric party.
Hagel also responded to Özdemir’s remarks about the extension of border controls by Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU). “It’s one thing to loudly deplore the consequences of illegal immigration in newspaper articles, but another to take concrete action against it. Clearly, the Green candidate is unwilling to do that. It just doesn’t add up-big speeches cannot be followed by inaction when the issue becomes real” Hagel said.
Just before the election, two polls show the Greens approaching the long‑dominant CDU in the state. A coalition of CDU and Greens is currently the most likely governing option with a sufficient majority in the Landtag.
