In a press release, European environmental parties – including French and German environmentalists – call on Friday the candidate of the American Green Party, Jill Stein, to withdraw her candidacy for the presidential election in favor of Kamala Harris.
In this text, they write, that the election “is too tight to be reassuring. We call on Jill Stein to withdraw from the race and we support Kamala Harris for President of the United States”. “The stakes in these elections could not be higher”they estimate. “Donald Trump promised that if he became president again, he would expand abortion bans, deny members of the LGBTQIA+ community their rights and deport migrants en masse”say environmentalists. “It is clear that Kamala Harris is the only candidate who can prevent Donald Trump and his anti-democratic and authoritarian policies from reaching the White House”they add.
In the United States, Democrats fear that the Green Party candidate will undermine their chances of retaining the White House. Jill Stein has her name on the ballot in almost every state capable of swinging the election, with no chance of winning in any of them.
In 2016, Republicans won Wisconsin for the first time in nearly three decades. Hillary Clinton then lost this state by a little less than 23,000 votes against Donald Trump, and some Democrats had blamed Jill Stein and her 31,000 votes. An advertising campaign ensuring that“A Stein vote is actually a vote for Trump” was recently broadcast by Democrats in Wisconsin, but also in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two other key states.
But this call is unlikely to influence Jill Stein: the European Greens’ statement underlines the “diverging values and policies” European and American Greens, noting “that there is no link between the two since the American Greens are no longer members of the global organization of green parties”. The declaration attributes the « fissure » to “relations of the American party with parties led by [figures] authoritarian regimes and serious political differences on key issues, including Russia’s large-scale attack on Ukraine..
