Just a few years ago, the SPD in the district of Munich lay in ruins. Worn out by internal quarrels, personal animosity and fueled by the harsh applause in the 2017 federal election and the 2018 state election. At that time, pacification of the troubled Munich-Land sub-district hardly seemed possible, the rifts within the district association were too deep. The fact that the party was still able to get back on its feet has mainly to do with two names: Natascha Kohnen and Florian Schardt.
When the fight for the successor to the outgoing district chairwoman Bela Bach threatened to escalate in 2019, the member of the state parliament Kohnen from Neubiberg managed a coup: At the time, she also bet against the inner-party competitor Annette Ganssmüller-Maluche, who Kohnen was responsible for her failure in the state election a year earlier had gone through the Ottobrunner Schardt, which had been completely unknown in local politics up to that point. In retrospect, this volte can be described as a personal stroke of luck for the Social Democrats – and looking ahead as a sustainable formula for success. Because while Kohnen, the former head of the Bavarian SPD, will resign from the state parliament after 15 years in the Maximilianeum next year, Schardt could succeed her as a member of parliament from the district of Munich. The chances of this are good after the nomination party conference of the Upper Bavarian SPD. A member of the state parliament, Florian Schardt, would be something like Natascha Kohnen’s political legacy.
Schardt’s work as district chairman weighs even more than a possible success in the state elections next year. He brought the Munich-Land sub-district back into line and disciplined it. Not with an iron hand, but as a clever communicator within the district parliamentary group, which also includes Kohnen, Bach and Ganssmüller-Maluche. For one of the largest sub-districts of the SPD in the Free State, this was and is of existential importance after years of decline.