Natascha Kohnen will retire from the state parliament at the end of the current legislative period in 2023. The 54-year-old announced this in a letter to her SPD district association in Munich-Land and on her Facebook page. The former chairwoman of the Bavarian Social Democrats justified her decision not to apply for a seat in the 2023 state elections with a professional reorientation: “For me, it is the necessary and right time to break new ground again,” writes Kohnen, who lives in the Munich suburb of Neubiberg. “In autumn 2023 it will be 15 years that I was allowed to work in the state parliament,” says the message. Now it is a matter of “making a decision as to what my personal career path can look like on the one hand and how the SPD can shape its future in the Munich district on the other”.
Kohnen joined the party in 2001, was elected chair of the Munich-Land sub-district in 2013 and state chair in 2017 with 88.3 percent. She experienced her low point in 2018, when she was the top candidate with 9.7 percent, the worst SPD result ever in a state election. Immediately before that, she had clashed with the then party leader Andrea Nahles, who had approved the promotion of the former President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen, to State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior. In April 2021, Kohnen gave up the Bavarian SPD presidency.
As far as her professional future is concerned, the qualified biologist is keeping a low profile: “I continue to be interested in social housing and combating climate change.” You could well imagine working in these areas.