Germany’s Green Party shows how to pick a candidate for chancellor

A GREATER STUDY in contrasts would be hard to imagine. At 11am sharp on the morning of April 19th, exactly as promised, Germany’s Green Party anointed Annalena Baerbock as its candidate for the country’s chancellorship, which will be vacated when Angela Merkel steps down after a general election in September. Ms Baerbock, a 40-year-old MP, got the nod with the approval of Robert Habeck, the co-leader with whom she has helped turn the Greens from electoral also-runs to . The process was smoothly organised and the result clearly communicated. The decision was in fact made before Easter, said Ms Baerbock; the party had successfully kept it under wraps since then.At the same time Germany’s ruling conservatives—Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Union (CSU)—were locked in an over who should lead them into the election battle: Armin Laschet, the CDU leader and premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most-populous state; or Markus Söder, the popular head of the CSU and of Bavaria, the second-biggest state. The pair have been negotiating, on and off, for nearly a week, but neither man has yet stood down. No formal process exists to grind out a result. Clandestine briefings and leaks have poisoned the atmosphere.