The pressure on the SPD, Greens and FDP is growing to actually focus on progress in a progress coalition and not to fill the most important offices at the top of the state exclusively with men. The SPD leader Norbert Walter-Borjans reignited the debate when he brought the SPD parliamentary group chairman Rolf Mützenich into play for the office of Bundestag President. “There are a number of suitable women and men in the SPD parliamentary group, starting with our parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich,” said Walter-Borjans Picture on sunday.
If Mützenich were to head the Bundestag and Olaf Scholz to the Chancellery in a traffic light coalition, then, together with Frank-Walter Steinmeier as Federal President, the three highest political posts would be assigned to men. Together with the office of President of the Federal Council and President of the Federal Constitutional Court, all five posts at the top of the state would be occupied by men.
“In 2021, such a decision seems out of date,” write Jutta Allmendinger, President of the Social Research Center in Berlin (WZB), and the Chairman of the German Ethics Council, Peter Dabrock, in an open letter in the news magazine The mirror. Occupying the entire head of state with men is “not a signal of departure and progress,” it says in its appeal to the SPD parliamentary group. The authors demand a woman as President of the Bundestag and ask how a “progressive coalition” can be represented responsibly towards its own voters “if the participation of women is disregarded in the first decision?”
“We do not accept the well-known excuse that there would be no woman”
A question that is now being discussed aloud in the SPD. The party women called on the parliamentary group on Monday to nominate a woman for the Bundestag presidium. There must be a successor to Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), said the chairwoman of the Working Group of Social Democratic Women, Maria Noichl, of the editorial network in Germany. “The SPD’s future program calls for the decade of equality,” said Noichl. “These words demand action”, in the SPD parliamentary group there are “competent and great women”, the “well-known excuse that no woman would be found, we do not accept.”
Walter-Borjans also admits that there are suitable women in the SPD parliamentary group. The party chairman also reaffirmed the SPD’s claim to the office of President of the Bundestag. He contradicted speculation that the post could be transferred to the FDP or the Greens. “The largest parliamentary group traditionally provides the President of the Bundestag, and this time we are,” says Walter-Borjans. “There is no reason to change anything.” The voters’ decision certainly gives cause for change and progress. And Allmendinger and Dabrock’s appeal makes it clear how explosive the upcoming nomination is.