Germany’s Greens have defeated Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative CDU in Baden-Württemberg state elections, seen as a test for the German leader, according to exit polls.
Over 31% of voters chose the Greens led by Cem Özdemir, a poll for the broadcaster ZDF saidcompared to 30.5% for the CDU. ARDanother public broadcaster, vein The Greens ahead with 32% to 29%.
Özdemir served as German federal minister for food and agriculture from 2021 to 2025 in the coalition government led by Olaf Scholz.
Both polls showed that the far-right Alternative for Germany almost doubled its result compared to the 2021 election, taking third place with around 18% of the vote.
For its part, the socialist SPD appears to have halved its support, falling from 11% to just 5.5%, according to both polls.
With less than 5% of the vote, the liberal FDP and the radical left Die Linke, according to both polls, are likely to fail to secure seats in the Baden-Württemberg state parliament.
The political star of Germany’s Turkish heritage
Ozdemir, 60, is now set to become the country’s first state prime minister of Turkish heritage. He calls himself an “Anatolian Swabian,” a nod to his Turkish parents and the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg where he was born and raised.
He became one of the first federal MPs with Turkish roots in 1994 and was able to benefit from considerable name recognition in the Baden-Württemberg campaign, especially when compared to the CDU’s front-runner, the relatively unknown 37-year-old Manuel Hagel.
Ozdemir was born the son of a textile worker and a tailor in the small town of Bad Urach, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Stuttgart, in December 1965. His parents were part of the wave of “Gastarbeiter” or “guest workers” who provided much of the labor force for Germany’s wonders, many of them from post-war economic Turkey.
He received German citizenship in 1983.
In addition to serving as a federal deputy, Ozdemir sat in the European Parliament between 2004 and 2009. In televised debates in the run-up to the Baden-Württemberg poll, he made much of his foreign policy expertise and argued that his experience and contacts could help the region, which is home to car industry backers such as Porsche and MercedesB.
