Speaking to our colleagues from RTL Télé on Thursday evening, Sam Tanson admitted that there had been a lot of internal debates about the party’s usual gender-equal tandem of lead candidates for national elections. However, since Tanson has been in leadership positions for a long time, the party decided that she was the obvious choice for sole lead candidate.
Tanson stressed that the Green Party “is not a junior partner,” but is on equal footing with the other coalition partners after being strengthened during the 2018 elections.
The party is “not worried” about polls and will focus on outlining its election programme in the next months, Tanson said. The incumbent Minister of Justice and Culture declared that she wants to secure her children “a future with clean air and water, and beautiful forests.” According to Tanson, the Green Party is the party with the necessary expertise to achieve this.
While the cooperation between the coalition partners is generally going well, Tanson conceded that they do not always agree on everything “because there are, after all, three different parties.”
The Green Party wants to promote its core policy areas of climate and social justice, with Tanson naming “freedoms and democracy” as important issues in this regard. Tanson explained that her daughter has Ukrainian classmates, demonstrating that “many children are confronted with these fears directly.” The Green Party’s lead candidate stated that her party therefore wants to continue to support Ukraine.
There are “no red lines” for the Green Party when it comes to future coalitions. Tanson remarked that it is critical to examine election platforms and see what other parties propose on “green future issues” such as “freedom, environment, and homeland.”
However, Tanson ruled out the possibility of a coalition with the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (adr), stating that the latter’s values are “opposed” to those she has fought for her entire life, such as the protection of minorities. As for the Left Party (déi Lénk), Tanson said that the party’s stances on international issues “must be taken into account.”
The Green Party’s lead candidate reiterated that the different election programmes will have to be scrutinised. “There are four big parties, and the country needs a stable coalition,” she concluded.
Sam Tanson was elected unanimously as the first female national lead candidate in the history of the Green Party.
After studying law, Tanson worked as a journalist between 2002 and 2004 before returning to a legal profession and working for the bar association. At the same time she worked on her political career and became an MP in the Chamber of Deputies in 2018, six months before the next legislative elections. During the 2018 elections, Tanson managed to double her score from 2013 and came second just behind François Bausch, who has always supported her political career.
As Minister of Justice, Sam Tanson has, for example, pushed for a major reform of Luxembourg’s youth protection and juvenile criminal law.
