February 18, 2022
Germany’s Green Party, a member of the new ruling coalition, has elected an Iranian immigrant as one of its two new co-leaders.
The party always has two leaders—one male and one female.
Omid Nouripour, 46, and Ricarda Lang, 28, were elected as the party’s co-leaders January 29.
They are replacing Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, who had led the party since 2018 but have both taken ministerial posts in Germany’s new government. Baerbock is the country’s new foreign minister while Habeck is a vice chancellor and minister for economics and climate.
In December, the three-party coalition of the Greens, the center-left Social Democrats and the pro-business Free Democrats took office under Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The government marks a new era after 16 years of Angela Merkel’s leadership, and the Greens’ first time in government since 2005. The Green Party took 14.8 percent of the vote in last year’s balloting.
Lang ran for leader unopposed while Nouripour had two challengers but won easily.
Nouripour was born in Iran and immigrated to Germany at 13. He is a veteran party official who served as the party’s spokesman on foreign affairs while it was in opposition.
The two face the challenge of following in the footsteps of Baerbock and Habeck, who are popular in the party and widely credited with broadening the Greens’ voter base in recent years. They also need to shape the Greens to operate as part of the ruling coalition, instead of in opposition.
Nouripour was born in Teh-ran. In 1988, he emigrated to Frankfurt with his family. He studied German, political science, law, sociology, philosophy and economics at the University of Mainz, but did not earn a degree.
Nouripour was elected to the German Federal Parliament in 2006 as the second member of Iranian descent (after Michaela Noll-Tadjadod), taking the vacated seat of the former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. He has since been representing the Frankfurt am Main II district and was re-elected in 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021.
Nouripour has been a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs since 2014 and of the Finance Committee since 2021. He also served on the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid from 2014 until 2017. He has written widely on migration and is the speaker of the Green Party on migration issues and refugees.
Nouripour is highly critical of the Iranian regime. He has called on Germany to show more support for the nuclear deal. He has said he hopes “Iran and Saudi Arabia never get their hands on a nuclear weapon.”
