What does helplessness and frustration look like? A bit like Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock one day after the Bundestag elections. The still-vice chancellor and foreign minister both looked extremely serious when they met journalists in the German capital, Berlin.

The Greens came away with 11.61% of Sunday's vote, compared to their 14.8% share in 2021.

A coalition partner in the previous government, the Greens will now be relegated to the opposition.

The conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and their sisterChristian Socialists (CSU) party will likely form a coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), leaving the Greens with no real say in the next government.

Until CDU leader Friedrich Merz is elected as the new Chancellor, the current government with its Green Party cabinet ministers will remain in office, but as sitting ducks without much room for maneuver.

By around Easter, the Greens' time at the levers of power will most likely come to an end after less than four years.

The Green Party's failed chancellor candidate........

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