Watch: German minister teases plan to run for chancellor with Taylor Swift-style wristband

Robert Habeck hums German rock anthem Time for Change as he announces he is running to be the candidate for the Greens

The German vice-chancellor teased his plan to run for the country’s top office with a video in which he wears a Taylor Swift-style wristband adorned with the words “Chancellor era”.
Robert Habeck, the Green economy minister, released the clip on Thursday before confirming the launch of his campaign to replace Olaf Scholz as chancellor.
Mr Scholz’s “traffic-light” coalition, uniting the Social Democrats (SPD) with the Greens and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), collapsed in November after months of tension over government spending and support for Ukraine.
Snap elections have been called but it is unclear when they will take place, with the head of the election commission warning Germany may not have enough paper for the ballot.
In the teaser video, posted on X, Mr Habeck hums along to a German rock anthem “Time for Change” with the wristband visible as he writes on a piece of paper.
The camera briefly gives a close-up of his wrist to reveal the Taylor Swift-inspired announcement, a riff on the pop megastar’s Eras tour.
Asked on Friday night about the wristband and whether he intended to run in an interview, Mr Habeck was coy.
Referring to the friendship bracelet alone, he said “it comes from this Swiftie Era thing”.
The Eras tour was the highest-grossing concert tour of all time, bringing in 1.93 billion dollars (£1.5 billion) and increasing the GDP of some national economies.
Swift’s fans, known as Swifties, gave friendship bracelets to each other at the concerts to symbolise female sisterhood.
On Saturday, Mr Habeck finally confirmed his candidacy in a second video.
“I’m running to be the candidate of the Greens, for the people of Germany,” he said in a clip of him at his kitchen table at home.
“I know the traffic light government has failed. I know that trust has been broken” he said, adding that “a claim to leadership has to be earned. I want to earn it.”
Wearing a casual black jumper, Mr Habeck said he wanted to meet voters at their kitchen table, an unusually personal and informal gesture in Germany’s often staid politics. “Maybe I’ll come up with ideas I’d never have otherwise.”
In the last German election, Mr Habeck stood aside for Annalena Baerbock to run for chancellor.
Ms Baerbock, who was later appointed foreign minister, came third in a campaign that was marred by the discovery of exaggerations in her CV and a focus on the relatively youthful candidate’s lack of governing experience.
Mr Habeck is popular with the Green base and recognised as a strong public speaker, particularly in contrast to the taciturn Mr Scholz.
His tenure as economy minister has drawn criticism amid a historic stagnation in GDP. He was also an architect of the unpopular policy forcing German homeowners to buy heat pumps.
In the video, Mr Habeck took a subtle swipe at electoral front-runner Friedrich Merz, the leader of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), saying “anyone who seeks solutions in the past is losing the future of our country”.
Mr Merz has said he’ll bring back nuclear power and stop the phase-out of the combustion engine, two flagship green policies that were backed by both Scholz and Merkel, but which Merz argues have hit Germany’s economy and consumers’ pockets.
Mr Merz hit back, telling reporters that “the announcement of the candidate for chancellor with nine percent voter approval has a humorous part”, while the leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party called it a “mockery” of voters, blaming the Green candidate for the “economic disaster and collapse of industry” and ruled out any cooperation with the Greens.
Christian Lindner, the former finance minister whose exit from the government last week robbed the coalition of its parliamentary majority, called his former colleagues “pretty crazy. They don’t have a majority but there are now two candidates for chancellor in the government.”