Status: 03/30/2023 2:53 p.m
The surprising resignation of head of state Kuchaty has thrown the SPD into chaos in North Rhine-Westphalia. Quarrels, intrigues and an election defeat had previously worn down the largest national association.
Inheritance and misery are close together in the SPD in North Rhine-Westphalia. It only opened its new headquarters in a prime location in Düsseldorf last year. The Johannes-Rau-Haus exudes the charm of a modern office property and its opulence alone reminds the SPD that there were better times for them in NRW.
Ironically, one of the first major appearances of the state chairman Thomas Kutschaty in front of journalists in the new building was his resignation. The party had probably imagined it differently. And it shows that the SPD in the most populous federal state is a long way from the form it once had under its long-term Prime Minister Johannes Rau.
After the surprising resignation of the 54-year-old lawyer Kuchaty, after only two years in office, the party is left empty-handed. There is a wide gap between aspiration and reality. Nothing was prepared, everything now has to be improvised at lightning speed.
Three defeats and the consequences
After the defeat in 2017 against the CDU, Prime Minister Hannelore Kraft threw the chunks at the party’s feet on the evening of the election. In the end, after tormenting years of self-occupation, Kuchaty emerged victorious from the power struggles over her and the successor to parliamentary leader Norbert Römer.
First, the former North Rhine-Westphalia Minister of Justice snagged the parliamentary group chairmanship against the favored Marc Herter in a 2018 vote. Three years later, the man from Essen also fought his way to the top of the party after, with the help of followers, he shot the hapless member of the Bundestag Sebastian Hartmann at the head of the state association.
Debacle in state elections
But the 2022 state election campaign against the CDU chairman Hendrik Wüst, who had just been elected to office, turned into a debacle for the SPD and its top man Kutschaty. With only 26.7 percent, it achieved its historically worst result in the country. What is almost even more serious: For the third time after 2005 and 2017, the party lost to the CDU after governing 39 years in a row in Düsseldorf. The story of the Social Democratic homeland on the Rhine and Ruhr, as comrades like to try to do between Aachen and Porta Westfalica, is only a pale memory.
The SPD knows that it can no longer inspire voters with ventricular rhetoric alone. Especially since ventricular fibrillation would be the more appropriate metaphor at the moment. The result in the federal election in autumn 2021 was 29.1 percent better than in the state election. Nevertheless, the long-term trend is pointing downwards. Above all, the low turnout in the former strongholds in the Ruhr area is a problem for the SPD.
“The Empire Strikes Back”
The party has been rumbling since the election. Many accuse Kuchaty of being primarily responsible for the defeat. He took too much time with his election analysis, he lacked charisma and a clear idea. The attempt to get a young and unknown councilwoman from Bonn accepted as general secretary has now led to a showdown – with a worse end for Kuchaty. The board of directors did not follow him.
The next day, the humiliated leader announced his resignation from the party leadership. In the meantime, it is said in many places that “Thomas no longer communicated well”. For the time being, he will continue as parliamentary group leader and opposition leader in the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament, but his authority may have suffered. The parliamentary group wants to re-elect in the next few weeks, and those interested in the office are currently struggling for pole position.
Kuchaty may have underestimated his opponents within the party. His rise to the top has left wounds in those who had other plans. Old scores have now been settled. As one insider put it: “The Empire strikes back.”
The problem with proportion
It is clear to observers that the SPD in NRW has a permanent problem. It is the internal party proportional representation of the regions. There are four of them in the national association and they always make sure that they are considered when top positions are awarded. That can paralyze. You can already hear individuals who no longer seem up to date. It is not important where someone comes from, but what he or she can do.
A second problem is the staff. In the parliamentary group there are hardly any MPs who once held a government office. Although a number of comrades are happy about some recognized mayors and district administrators, none of them have so far publicly shown any interest in wanting to lead the ailing regional association. The risk of having made a bad deal in the end seems too great.
In a way, it is a story that only politics writes, that Herter of all people, who lost a win against Kuchaty, is now supposed to lead the party on an interim basis and organize a new beginning. He, who is now mayor of Hamm in Westphalia, begins with a blank sheet of paper.
Feeling for the “supper table”
He will probably make a lot of calls over the next few weeks and sweep up broken pieces. “Take everyone with you,” as the saying goes: parliamentary group and regions, local authorities, the state group in the Bundestag and the notoriously rebellious Jusos. The SPD is deeply unsettled, the party conference planned for May has been postponed to August. Instead, she wants to consult at a convention. Get a feeling for the topics again, according to Herter, about “talking about the people at the dinner table”. A remarkable statement for a self-proclaimed people’s party.
The events in North Rhine-Westphalia will also have consequences for the Berlin party leadership. A former top comrade says that the federal SPD likes to take the votes from NRW with it in elections, but not the heads. For many in Berlin, the Rhenish capitalist style of politics in the West is rather strange. But without success in NRW, no success in the federal government, that’s the simple formula. For this you have to be six to eight percentage points above the national average in NRW. This ambivalence, the SPD man fears, will in the long run reduce the influence of the largest state association in Berlin – and the chances of successful federal elections.
Transitional boss Herter seems to have recognized this. When asked by the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” whether the state SPD now needs a prominent federal politician at the top, he replies: “I would rather say that we would have made the wrong choice of personnel if the new leadership of the NRW-SPD did not very quickly have nationwide prominence.”
Building on Johannes Rau’s legacy will not be easy. It stands in bronze near the State Chancellery and looks out over the Rhine. And at the university in his hometown of Wuppertal, there has been a “Johannes Rau Center” since last summer, which houses his private library. Incidentally, it was opened by Hendrik Wüst.