The SPD members in Saxony-Anhalt have approved the joint coalition agreement with the CDU and FDP. 63.4 percent of the Social Democrats voted in the membership vote for the black-red-yellow government alliance.
The state SPD counted the votes from the membership decision on Saturday morning in Magdeburg. Around 3,300 members could have voted. The turnout was then 60.4 percent. In the past few weeks, the party had held several regional conferences and campaigned for approval.
A parallel membership decision in the state CDU ends on Tuesday next week. Three days later, the FDP votes on the black-red-yellow alliance at a party conference in Magdeburg. The vote in the SPD was considered the highest hurdle for the cooperation of the three parties.
Juliane Kleemann: “Many social democratic issues placed”
The SPD top has welcomed the party members’ approval of a coalition with the CDU and FDP. Chairwoman Juliane Kleemann told MDR SACHSEN-ANHALT that this was now a good chance to recover with eight percent after the poor state election result. It had succeeded in placing many social democratic topics. Kleemann’s co-chair, Andreas Schmidt, called the voting result a strong signal.
Kleemann had already been cautiously optimistic on Friday. There has recently been a “positive mood and really good debates on content,” said Kleemann. The party has shown that it is about content. In addition to the redesign of the ministries, the chapter on education in particular was discussed controversially.
In the coalition negotiations, for example, the party had pushed through the retention of the community school as a school form and more capacities for the training of new teachers. Other demands such as equal pay for all teachers were not met. “We note that more is just not possible,” said Kleemann.
Critic: SPD makes itself “unnecessarily small”
In the coalition negotiations, the SPD had to leave the economic department to the CDU. Instead, Minister Armin Willingmann should now take care of the environment, energy and climate protection in addition to science. Opponents of the agreement like the former state chairman Burkhard Lischka say that the SPD would “make itself unnecessarily small”.