Chancellor Party SPD: conspicuously inconspicuous | tagesschau.de

The SPD made it through its first year as chancellor party without any problems. Whereby: This peace and harmony are already striking. What is the share of the management duo Esken and Klingbeil?

The old SPD flashes up again very briefly: It’s a late Sunday in November. The party meets for the debate convention, a kind of small federal party conference. Many delegates are already on their way home. Then the remaining Jusos suddenly realized that they had the chance to finally let the unpopular debt brake believe in it. The party leadership is opposed to such a decision, which would endanger the coalition peace and get the FDP in trouble. In the end, General Secretary and ex-Juso boss Kevin Kühnert has to weigh his entire authority and openly oppose the Juso, who once made him great.

The example shows how much has changed in the SPD in the past three years. Unity is now the most important currency and stands above everything. “Keeping the store together, having the mediating role and always approaching people to convince them,” describes party leader Saskia Esken in an interview with the ARD Capital Studio Your task.

Recently, however, this has not often been necessary, at least publicly. The SPD is more united than it has been for a long time. Cross shots come neither from the state associations nor from the parliamentary group. Nothing remains of the struggles that brought Esken to office. And the party leader probably has a large stake in the new SPD. She is still considered the party leader elected by the members. And as such, Esken is particularly effective in the party. As long as she’s at the top, even more critical members keep their feet still.

The credit side

The chairmen Esken and Lars Klingbeil reorganized the SPD. They turned a party that was chronically dissatisfied with itself into a successful chancellor party again. And by its own standards, it delivered right away in the first year of the new government. On the plus side for the SPD are, for example, the increase in the minimum wage, the higher child benefit, the housing benefit reform and of course the new citizens’ benefit. In addition, the party refers to relief in the hundreds of billions. Most of it was developed under the leadership of the Federal Ministry of Labor. Department head Hubertus Heil is considered an SPD top performer in the cabinet of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The debit side

Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht is probably the most frequently mentioned when talking about the weaker SPD ministers. It is an open secret that she would have preferred to have been Minister of the Interior. Even after twelve months, it still seems as if she is stranger to the office. However, Lambrecht does not currently have to reckon with their dismissal. The chancellor appreciates their reliability. In addition, he is not known for questioning personnel decisions at the first storm.

There is also criticism of Federal Building Minister Klara Geywitz, who has so far left little trace, or of Health Minister Karl Lauterbach and his crisis management. And if the majority of your own ministers cannot convince, no matter how harmonious things can be in the party, you will then have problems with the voters.

But the first state election year went surprisingly well for the Chancellor’s Party. In Saarland she even managed a change of government. In the nationwide polls, however, the party is not moving. in the ARD Germany trend the SPD is in a neck-and-neck race with the Greens. Both are 18 percent. The difference: the Greens have increased significantly since the federal elections, while the SPD has lost around a quarter of its supporters.

The Chancellor

For the first time since 2005, the SPD has had a chancellor. However, this does not have a positive effect on the party’s poll numbers. Anyone looking for reasons will quickly end up with the management style or Scholz’s type of communication. The Germans still have to get used to the new chancellor, says party leader Klingbeil. Especially since the difference to the beginning of Angela Merkel’s chancellorship is clear: “Angela Merkel was only confronted with a major crisis, the financial crisis of 2008, in her third year in office. From day one, Olaf Scholz has led our country through multiple national and international crises. ” Corona, war, energy costs, climate – the crises are in fact currently lining up and sometimes even overlapping.

The role in the coalition

And then there is the new type of government constellation. For the first time, Germany is governed by a traffic light alliance. On many issues, the SPD is right in the middle between the Greens and the FDP. She also sees herself as a mediator between the poles of this coalition. This is probably one of the reasons why the chancellor’s leadership is sometimes hardly noticed in public. He moderates more in the background to keep the coalition together.

It is no coincidence that the impression sometimes arises that the chancellor is letting the FDP get away with too much. After all, the smallest government partner quarrels the most with the alliance. The Chancellor and his SPD must therefore show a little more consideration for the Liberals. But they mustn’t alienate the Greens either. How fragile the tripartite alliance is and how difficult compromises can be was shown by the dispute over the longer nuclear power plant operating times.

The Perspectives

There are four state elections in 2023 – all with different opportunities and risks for the SPD. In Berlin, the party, led by Franziska Giffey, wants to defend the red town hall. The election campaign is just getting started – the outcome is uncertain. The SPD looks somewhat calmer to Bremen. There they are counting on the re-election of Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte.

It gets complicated in autumn in Hesse. A lot depends on whether the Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, becomes the top candidate. But she is still reluctant to trade the government office in Berlin for an uncertain future in Hesse. Should Faeser opt for the top candidate, the SPD would need a new interior minister by autumn at the latest. It should be a woman again, so that parity in the cabinet is maintained. The name Saskia Esken keeps coming up. In an interview with the ARD Capital Studio she doesn’t want to comment anymore. In the Berlin “Tagesspiegel” she had recently described the job as “exciting task”.

Scholz could also use the opportunity for a more extensive castling. What speaks against it: He is said to want to change as little as possible in the cabinet. That speaks more for a replacement only in the Ministry of the Interior, should Faeser actually move to Hesse.

In Bavaria there will also be elections in autumn. For the SPD, this is about not doing worse than in 2018. At that time it came to 9.7 percent.