There she is now on this lavish evening. Manuela Schwesig, the old and new Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, currently the most successful politician of the SPD. The woman who friends of the Social Democrats would now trust in just about any top job in the party.
The graphics on the canvas at the SPD election party in Schwerin’s old town glow red. The party’s bar in the projections after this state election grows higher and higher in these hours, and the SPD also conquers most of the constituencies. Almost 40 percent of the votes are at the end – three times as many as with the CDU, nine percentage points more than five years ago and only marginally less than the greatest success in 2002. “Yes, I would say flashed,” replies Manuela Schwesig, as one asks how she is doing in a brief moment of rest. “I am happy and touched. There were also difficult years in which you had to expect people to do things that you couldn’t imagine.”
She could hardly have imagined it all herself. Her predecessor Erwin Sellering, SPD election winner 2016, left office in 2017 with cancer. She took over and became ill herself with breast cancer in 2019, months of therapy began. Then there was Corona on top of that, she led her state through the pandemic. “That shows that the sun comes after rain and that you can’t give up,” says Manuela Schwesig, before she has to go on to the next interview.
It is her moment, her first major electoral triumph. The top candidate pulled the SPD through the election campaign in the German north-east and gave it a comparatively heavenly result. She enjoys that as far as possible on election day. Family breakfast in the morning, now the political party with a conversation marathon at the Italian, her son is also there and takes photos. His mother wears a cream-colored trouser suit with a pink top and changes shoes after a few hours, sneakers instead of pumps, more comfortable.
Schwesig will speak to four parties
Such days and weeks are exhausting enough, the next morning it goes straight on. First the visit to the SPD headquarters in Berlin with Olaf Scholz and Franziska Giffey, who also won, albeit closer than them. Then the SPD state executive meets on Monday evening in Güstrow, the head of government has the choice with immediate effect. You and your fellow campaigners will probably talk to four parties about a future coalition, three options come into question: again with the CDU, as before with the left or for the first time with the Greens and FDP.
All three combinations would be mathematically possible in Schwerin Castle, the most beautiful state parliament in Germany. So who will become an appendage of the SPD, which has more mandates than the CDU and AfD together, but still needs a little support? It should be a stable government, “a reliable partner,” says Manuela Schwesig. The greatest majority and tradition would have a continued red-black alliance, as it has been for 15 years. Together this time it would be 46 of the 79 seats. But how stable is the crashed CDU with its 13.3 percent in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania?
You have to “first see how the CDU wants to position itself,” says Schwesig. The CDU does not know that very well at the moment. She is back behind the AfD (16.7 percent), her embarrassment applicant Michael Sack resigned as state chairman as expected after his debacle; Former party leader Eckhardt Rehberg takes over temporarily. Even the Bundestag constituency 15, which Angela Merkel had ruled since the fall of the Wall, was lost to the SPD. And next door the constituency of Philipp Amthor to the AfD. The purest disaster.
The CDU would still like to continue to govern, otherwise it might end up in the opposition permanently. The SPD will probably also talk to the left about red-red and with the Greens and Liberals about a traffic light. In any case, Manuela Schwesig is in command, she speaks of a strong economy, social cohesion, environmental protection.
“What I’ve experienced as a woman,” bursts out of her
Of course, there are also questions about her future career plan. She was already the Federal Minister for Family Affairs and acting chairman of the SPD. She is proud to be “Prime Minister of the most beautiful federal state in Germany,” says Manuela Schwesig and smiles. She wants to “live up to the trust here in the country.”
Schwesig prevailed. “What I’ve experienced as a woman,” she once said, it bursts out of her. “The election evening in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was a clear message. Democracy needs the voice of women.” After the rain the sun.
On Monday morning, a cracking thunderstorm is falling over Schwerin – but by then the election winner is already on her way to join the SPD in Berlin.