Lawmakers from the Greens voted overwhelmingly in favor of Robert Habeck, Germany's deputy chancellor and economy minister, running as the party's lead candidate in February's early federal election. 

Habeck won 741 of 768 votes, or 96.48%, at the hastily-arranged conference in Wiesbaden, western Germany, on Sunday. 

"With this speech I'm applying for permission to lead you in the election campaign," the 55-year-old former children's author told delegates before the vote. 

Habeck said he knew he'd lost trust among the public in recent years in the governing coalition, but said he wanted to take responsibility as the party's "candidate for the people in Germany." 

As the result was read out in Wiesbaden, Habeck responded with a play on words in German that indicated his acceptance of the result and his desire to tackle the upcoming national election.

"We'll take [on] this vote," he said.

'A lot can change on all fronts,' Habeck said of upcoming campaign

The nomination means Habeck is the party's choice for chancellor, should it be in a position to field one.

But Habeck and the Greens have been open about this being a distant prospect, given that they are currently polling in the region of 11% or 12% support. 

He did bring up the notion of getting all the way to the chancellery in Sunday's speech to delegates, which lasted around an hour, but stressed how this would only be possible if campaign momentum "carries us very far." 

Ahead of the conference, Habeck told DW that he hoped current polls could prove misleading by February. All three members of the now-collapsed coalition had been suffering in the polls amid the public arguments, logjams and compromises on policy as they tried to keep the fractious alliance together. 

"All the disputes, all the compromises that we had to make are now gone. And now the parties are stepping forward with their own ideas. Now a lot can change on all fronts," he said.

Habeck steps in as Baerbock steps aside, in reversal of 2021

Four years ago, Habeck stepped aside to allow Annalena Baerbock, now foreign minister, to take a shot at the top job. She said earlier this year that she wanted to focus on her current post, partly given the fragile geopolitical situation, and that she had no ambition to run again. Habeck then made his intentions clear a few days ago.

He explicitly thanked Baerbock when addressing delegates after her on Sunday. 

"It's a great privilege to know you're ahead of me, by my side and behind me," Habeck said to Baerbock. 

Baerbock: No steadier hand in a storm

Baerbock, meanwhile, lauded Habeck as "super pragmatic," saying he had managed to keep a steady course and free Germany from its dependence on Russian energy imports amid the crisis posed by Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, referring to policies that in some cases have angered parts of the party's ecologist base. 

"Nobody can handle the rudder like Robert Habeck in a storm and at the same time set the sails correctly in a tailwind," she said. 

Fresh faces Brantner, Banaszak take up party co-leadership

On Saturday, the opening day of the conference, the pro-environment party also appointed a new party leadership duo: multilingual foreign policy specialist Franziska Brantner and 35-year-old Felix Banaszak, a former co-chair of the party's youth wing who only joined the federal parliament after the last election in 2021. 

The Greens briefly led in the polls early in the 2021 campaign, but slipped drastically to finish a distant third, with 14.7% support, as Scholz's Social Democrats made a late surge which put them ahead of their traditional rivals, the Christian Democrats.

msh/dj (AFP, dpa, Reuters)

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