SPD party conference: lead or manage? | tagesschau.de

The last time the SPD was as bad as it is in surveys was more than two years ago. That doesn’t bode well for the party leadership, which wants to be re-elected at the federal party conference that starts today.

It was the silence that probably signaled to Saskia Esken more than anything else at the Juso federal congress in November in Braunschweig that something was going wrong. When the SPD co-chairwoman, who was promoted to office four years ago with the active help of Kevin Kühnert’s Jusos, spoke to the SPD’s junior staff, only a few hands moved. Despite all the criticism that the Jusos had in their hearts, she knew that she was at home here.

Size discontent the Jusos

Esken, a decidedly left-wing party member who is in favor of redistribution and against the debt brake, should feel at home with the left-wing Jusos. But the newly elected Juso chairman Philipp Türmer showed her quite mercilessly that this is not the case or is no longer the case.

He remembered that the Jusos supported Esken and Walter-Borjans for the party leadership at the time: “Back then we were in a serious crisis of social democracy, but if we compare that with today, we have to realize that the situation is much worse today is.” Esken lowered his head and wrote down.

No departure, no jolt, no profile. The testimony that Türmer gave to the SPD and especially to the SPD leadership was quite devastating. Esken’s co-party leader Lars Klingbeil is nevertheless relaxed. It is good that the SPD has such a critical and ultimately solidarity youth association. Of course there are political conflicts, but that’s okay.

When it comes to the debt brake, which the Jusos and many left-wing parties would like to abolish completely, Klingbeil is less conciliatory. The party leadership wants to reform the debt brake, which it calls the “brake on growth and the future.” Klingbeil is sure that in the end there will be a majority in favor of this at the party conference.

Re-election of the party leadership is still safe

It is certain that Klingbeil and Esken will be re-elected at the party conference. The Secretary General should also do it. Even if Kevin Kühnert, who was responsible for the election campaigns in Bavaria and Hesse, among other things, achieved extremely poor results. He says it’s not because he doesn’t work enough. “The Secretary General messes up 1,000 things, which always puts the Secretary General under a lot of stress,” said Kühnert in an interview with ARD capital studio.

What Kühnert hardly does anymore: promote his own party. There isn’t enough time for that. In addition, criticizing Olaf Scholz’s content, as Kühnert often did as Juso boss, is pretty much impossible for him as general secretary to his own chancellor.

Of course, he says, he can talk all day long about what’s only in his head. “But we are an SPD that will ultimately be up for election,” said Kühnert. He believes that people expect Chancellor Scholz, the party leaders, the general secretary and the parliamentary group leader to form an opinion together and represent it to the outside world. “I’m totally fine with that.”

The party should stick together

Whatever resonates: The times in which the SPD, as a town of intriguers, was mainly concerned with itself, its wings and its arguments should be a thing of the past. A “Nahles Gate” must never be repeated. Also at the price that the party has become quiet – too quiet, as some say – that many are asking themselves: What does the SPD stand for?

Kühnert knows this: “The SPD has looked deep into the abyss, and we have worked our way out of it. We are standing up for millions of people who need us, as a political force that fights for them and not as a political force that fights with itself himself is fighting all the time.”

Now there are other fights, more existential fights. The SPD, which won people over before the 2021 federal election with a story of confidence and respect, has now lost them again. When Esken took stock of the current situation, things became even quieter among the Jusos in the town hall in Braunschweig.

Esken expressed what many people think: “The mood in our country – and the party is not free from it either, we are a reflection of our society – is characterized by great doubts and great uncertainty, and it could change. And that is allowed We won’t allow it.”

The mood at the federal party conference is difficult to assess. The party leadership will do everything to ensure that the SPD remains the level-headed chancellor election club – and does not mutate into a chancellor torment club. But things could also tip over in the CityCube in Berlin.