German Greens' Robert Habeck to lead bruised party into elections

Berlin: Germany s Greens have been environmental trailblazers but their top candidate, Robert Habeck, goes into snap national elections bruised by thr...

Berlin: Germany's Greens have been environmental trailblazers but their top candidate, Robert Habeck, goes into snap national elections bruised by three stormy years in government that ended in a political crisis.

Habeck's party is set on Sunday to nominate the 55-year-old as their lead candidate in February's federal polls -- at a time when the Greens are limping along with approval ratings of around 11 percent, down from the 20.5 percent score they won in the 2019 European Parliament elections.

Habeck, a father-of-four and a children's book author with a PhD in literature and philosophy, hails from the windswept coastal state of Schleswig-Holstein near the Danish border.

He entered Olaf Scholz's three-party coalition as vice chancellor in 2021, when the Greens were riding high and the Fridays for Future movement started by Greta Thunberg made the climate crisis a top political issue.

Habeck also assumed the post of minister for the economy and climate action, with ambitious plans to decarbonise Europe's biggest economy.