Thomas Kuchaty: The Power Fighter | tagesschau.de

As justice minister, he paled, but now he’s in attack mode. Thomas Kuschaty has developed into a power fighter – now he wants to lead the NRW-SPD back to power.

“Kchataty? I don’t know.” At the beginning of last year, almost half of those surveyed in North Rhine-Westphalia shrugged their shoulders when asked whether Thomas Kuschaty would be a good top candidate for the state elections. Since then, the leader of the opposition in the Düsseldorf state parliament has done a lot to increase his profile in the country – and has also shown a remarkable ability to change. He even lets himself be photographed on election posters with Olaf Scholz. Side by side, as if nothing fits between the two. All too long ago that would have been unthinkable.

As leader of the SPD parliamentary group, Kuchaty has also been leader of the opposition in the Düsseldorf state parliament for four years. In doing so, he shares the fate of many of his colleagues: when it comes to publicity, the heads of government always have it easier than the leaders of the opposition. And if the head of government in North Rhine-Westphalia is lucky enough to be able to play on the big stage of the conference of prime ministers, it will be twice as difficult for an opposition leader next to him. He only has the smaller stage of the state parliament.

Attack instead of self-defense

But Kuchaty knows how to use it. While he practiced self-defence in his time as North Rhine-Westphalia Minister of Justice, he has now clearly switched to attack mode. He recently attested to Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst that he was only the “winder” of the Laschet government and not an innovator. “We had every chance. They didn’t take any of them,” he accused him.

With his attacks on the state government, Kuchaty sometimes exudes the charm of a scrappy terrier. He once called the former Prime Minister Laschet a “light foot”, Health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann even “snotty and arrogant”. The political opponent reacted as hoped, for example, spoke of an “uncouth accusation” that Kuchaty should apologize – which translates to: As an opposition leader who wants to draw attention to himself, he has done everything right.

child of the Ruhr area

Kuchaty is a child of the Ruhr area. In 1968 he was born in Essen into a family of railway workers. He grew up in a council flat with a coal stove in Essen-Borbeck, a rather unglamorous part of town in the northwest of the city. He is still rooted here today. He lived right next door in Schönebeck, where there are old colliery settlements, and was a member of the board of the mining colony there. His father took him to SPD rallies early on. The political path seemed to be mapped out.

In school, however, he went his own way. He became the first Kuchaty to finish school with a high school diploma. After that, he remained true to the Ruhr area and studied law at the Ruhr University in Bochum. As a licensed lawyer, he opened the law firm “Kutschaty & Asch” in 1998 – in Essen, of course. But working as a lawyer was not enough for Kuchaty. He quickly realized: “At some point, the application of law no longer helps, but I have to change the law in order to be able to tackle something.”

The pale Minister of Justice

In 2010 he got his first opportunity to do so. Hannelore Kraft made him Minister of Justice in her red-green minority government. But in his seven years as a minister, Kuchaty remained rather pale. Rather, the desolate condition of many prisons in North Rhine-Westphalia was remembered. In 2012, a serious criminal was able to escape from Bochum JVA by levering out a dilapidated skylight. As a result, Kuchaty had to admit to the botched construction of numerous prisons in the state parliament. Even after that, ailing NRW prisons were a topic again and again.

The SPD in Essen, which he chaired in 2016, was hardly in better shape. First, local SPD groups in the north of Essen resisted what they saw as the unfair distribution of refugees in the city. The SPD leadership was just able to prevent their protest march. Then SPD councilor Guido Reil left the SPD after 26 years – and joined the AfD. Ironically, a former miner changed camp in the former SPD stronghold of Essen. Out of frustration, said Reil. Because he felt left out, said the Social Democrats.

At the time, the SPD in Essen said that Kutschaty, as chairman, was reluctant to deal with conflict – which, however, was seen as a quarreled heap of rubble. Under his leadership, she never left the headlines. In 2016, Petra Hinz, a member of the Bundestag in Essen, had to admit that she had falsified her CV. Among other things, Hinz had pretended to be a lawyer. She didn’t even have her high school diploma. Many could hardly believe that the lawyer Kuchaty should not have noticed this in years of close cooperation with Hinz.

The 2017 state elections turned into a debacle for the SPD. Although Kuschaty returned to the state parliament as a directly elected member, his party suffered heavy losses in Essen and throughout the country. For the first time, the AfD managed to enter the state parliament. In Kutschaty’s constituency, the AfD even came third with 13.1 percent.

The NRW-SPD postponed the necessary new start in terms of personnel by a year. Kutschaty used the time to position himself in the federal SPD: for the abolition of Hartz IV, for the introduction of a wealth tax and above all: against the new edition of the grand coalition in Berlin. Kuchaty also drew attention to himself in the NRW-SPD. When the parliamentary group chair was filled, he narrowly prevailed against Marc Herter, who was favored by the party establishment and a foster son of the long-time parliamentary group leader Norbert Römer. Kuschaty took this as a sign against the “backroom politics” of the North Rhine-Westphalia SPD and announced a new departure.

But a little later, when the question arose as to who should become the new party chairman in North Rhine-Westphalia, Kuchaty missed the opportunity to take on this office as well. The only candidate was the unknown member of the Bundestag Sebastian Hartmann.

Kuchaty learns power struggle

But the new dual leadership of party and faction leaders did not harmonize. Hartmann was hardly noticed in public. Anyone who wanted to know what the North Rhine-Westphalia SPD wants was better off asking parliamentary group leader Kuchaty. Finally, there was an open power struggle between Kuchaty and Hartmann, a struggle that Hartmann was unable to win. His supporters were far away in the parliamentary group in Berlin, while Kuchaty had secured his base in North Rhine-Westphalia.

In addition, there was the debacle in the local elections in autumn 2020, which put state head Hartmann under additional pressure. Meanwhile, Kuchaty made a name for himself during the corona pandemic with attacks against the state government.

The once pale ex-justice minister developed into an aggressive faction leader who now grabbed all the power in the party. Shortly before the decisive party conference in spring 2021, Hartmann, unnerved and disappointed, withdrew his candidacy for the state presidency – the way was clear for Kuchaty. At a digital party conference, he was elected party leader with 90.5 percent.

First against, then for Scholz

But the new state chairman was soon faced with new challenges. Because without a strong NRW-SPD, the upcoming federal election in autumn 2021 could not be won. Kutschaty had to lead his state association out of the polling low and – which doesn’t make things easier – support the chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz.

Because as a declared opponent of the grand coalition in Berlin, Kutschaty had spoken out clearly against GroKo Vice Chancellor Scholz when he wanted to be elected to head the federal SPD. But Kuschaty also knew that the majority in the federal government could only be achieved with a strong NRW SPD – Scholz or not. And his new support for Scholz in the federal election campaign finally paid off: the SPD was again the strongest force in NRW with 29.1 percent. In the federal government, she was just ahead of the CDU, and Scholz became Chancellor.

Being near Scholz also harbors risks

In the NRW state election campaign, Scholz retaliated by supporting Kuchaty. He, in turn, is now also advertising with his direct line to Berlin. The message that both convey is clear: there is no match between Scholz and Kuchaty.

However, there are also risks in this tight Scholz course. A few days ago, the SPD in Schleswig-Holstein felt the pain of the fact that not only tailwind is coming from Berlin at the moment. Does the chancellor harm or help the state election campaign? Kuschaty firmly believes in the latter: “The chancellor has a lot of support from the population, especially for his level-headed course in the Ukraine crisis. And that also gives us momentum,” he emphasized just a few days before the North Rhine-Westphalia elections.

Kutschaty has also learned from the federal election campaign and is now also focusing on a few topics in NRW: housing, climate-friendly jobs, health – and education. Because Kuschaty also knows that elections in North Rhine-Westphalia are won with school politics in particular. Or lost, like last time in 2017.