“Truly a turning point” – clear defeat for the strong man of the Berlin SPD
According to the wishes of the members, the Berlin SPD parliamentary group leader Raed Saleh should no longer be chairman of the party.
Source: Christophe Gateau/dpa
For a long time he was considered a powerful mastermind of the Berlin SPD. The previous party leader Raed Saleh has now clearly failed in the membership decision for the state chairmanship. His defeat can also be read as a reckoning with his previous policies.
Dhe members of the Berlin SPD have decided: they want a new beginning without the previous party leader Raed Saleh. In the first round of the Member survey For the new chairman duo, the incumbent and his co-candidate Luise Lehmann clearly failed with 15.65 percent of the votes. After the announced withdrawal of his co-chair Franziska Giffey at the state party conference in May, Saleh has now also dropped out of the race for party leadership.
The two remaining duos are now going into the runoff election: the Neukölln district mayor Martin Hikel and the former sports state secretary Nicola Böcker-Giannini, who are assigned to the right wing of the party, and the party leftists Kian Niroomand and Jana Bertels. Hikel and Böcker-Giannini received 48.24 percent, Niroomand and Bertels 36.11 percent of the vote. They will now face the members’ vote again from May 2nd to 17th. The voter turnout was 47.6 percent.
Saleh and Lehmann were disappointed. “Our members made a clear decision in the first round of voting, which we accept with respect and responsibility,” both explained. “Of course, this clear result is disappointing for us personally, but as a party the imminent clarity will strengthen us overall and allow us to concentrate and work together.”
Powerful mastermind
Saleh has been co-chair of the Berlin SPD since 2020, together with Senator for Economic Affairs Giffey. He has led the House of Representatives faction since 2011. The Palestinian-born politician has played a key role in shaping the SPD’s politics in recent years and has long been considered a powerful mastermind and the party’s strong man. Most recently, he led the party into an alliance with the CDU, which was unpopular with many Social Democrats. The clear clap for him can certainly be read as a reckoning.
Hikel commented on the result on Saturday that the SPD members had decided against “business as usual”. “This result is truly a turning point. It brings us as a social democracy in Berlin into a new era.” Fellow candidate Jana Bertels said the vote was a clear sign that the SPD Berlin needed a new start, “also in terms of personnel”. However, Giffey, who announced the result of the vote, emphasized that the members’ decision was not a vote on the parliamentary group chairmanship.
But one thing is also clear: Saleh is likely to be significantly weakened after this vote by the members, because the vote was ultimately one about his previous policies. Many members strongly resented his commitment to joining the grand coalition after the historic election defeat in the repeat election in 2023. An election analysis commissioned by the SPD after the election paints a bleak picture of the state of the party. The SPD is deeply divided, the two incumbent party leaders Franziska Giffey and Raed Saleh have ruled by order of mufti and distrust each other.
Unlike Saleh, Franziska Giffey had already announced her resignation from the party leadership on January 3rd. In a personal statement to party members at the time, she wrote that the past few months had shown that there is “a desire for a realignment in our party and that we need not only structural but also personnel changes and a new leadership model that fits into this time In order to overcome “the enormous challenges we face”, it is crucial that responsibility is distributed across several shoulders, the party is broadened and more people are given responsibility.
In addition to criticism of his leadership style, Saleh was also criticized for his central political content. His course of fee-free education from daycare to university, which, in addition to the abolition of daycare fees, also includes free lunch for all primary school students and a free student ticket on public transport, came under massive criticism in view of the upcoming austerity budgets. His challengers Hikel and Böcker-Giannini in particular loudly called for an end to the “free city”.
“In the last few years we have been handing out money randomly without making any improvements in quality,” criticized Hikel in an interview with WELT. “We have eliminated all fees that were previously based on income. But we haven’t managed to equip the system in such a way that the quality is right and people everywhere are happy to send their children to school and daycare. This is now becoming a problem because budget resources are tight.” The same applies to the subsidized 29-euro ticket for local transport. These “beliefs of the past” must be questioned. Salehs Counterattack in the “Tagesspiegel” was sharp: “It annoys me that now – in a phase in which the SPD is currently sorting itself out – people are playing with this important foundation of the party and society.”
Now the members have decided which course they would rather follow. Hikel and Böcker-Giannini, who narrowly missed an absolute majority in the first round of voting, now have to show whether they will stay ahead in the runoff. The party leadership will be finally elected based on the results of the runoff election at a party conference on May 25th. Although the members’ vote is not legally binding, a different vote by the delegates is practically impossible.