The SPD is in the biggest crisis in its history to date. How could this happen to the 156-year-old tradition of party? There is a way out? Questions to the political scientist Gero Neugebauer.
The results of the election are abysmal, the current poll numbers much worse: Since the resignation of the SPD party and parliamentary group head of Andrea Nahles, a week ago, it goes down with the social Democrats still further. In the party confusion. Whether the SPD will continue to remain in the government coalition with the CDU and the CSU. The party researchers Gero Neugebauer has been working for decades with the SPD. His analysis is hard.
DW: Why bags the SPD in elections and polls more?
Neugebauer: The SPD makes for years of error, the signal in the perception of the population: The party is not capable of action. The guide is not closed enough. The party chief is not in a position, as Chancellor of competing candidate. The programmatic, long-term Alternative is missing. It is political and personal offers, so that the SPD is as an Alternative to the Union is not clearly visible are missing. And there is also the discussion of a new perspective is missing.
This error come up in the coalition. To provide, for example, always a good job, but the communication of these successes of the Union, or even the Chancellor, to the credit. All this together makes up the sum of the errors, which are responsible for ensuring that the SPD is today, where it is.
In the European elections, the SPD received 15 percent, in polls the party was only twelve percent. The SPD is a people’s party?
Political Scientist Gero Neugebauer
The SPD is not a people’s party anymore. It is longer because it shows by your election results, you get even votes, but not to an extent that would be the evidence that it is represented in all relevant groups of the society. The members focus on a certain circle of society. In particular, the lower middle layer and the lower layer are missing, but also the upper middle class. What is more: The SPD is for some time not able to on the Federal level, a government to lead.
These are all arguments, because there is no closed Definition, for people’s parties. But a people’s party must be anchored in the society. This is reflected in the numbers of members, it shows in the election results, and you must be able to form a coalition to lead and to form majorities. The SPD no longer provides for quite some time.
What are the reasons?
The reasons are: A lack of perception of the changes in society, a traditional Organisation with a concentration on the apparatus and on the elected representatives in the parliaments and at the same time, a relative disregard of the needs of society members who are also party members. That is, it is a communication process takes place from top to bottom but not from bottom to top, so that it is not communicated to the party with the company.
The connection between members and leadership is not closed so that one has the impression that the party is capable of action. In the guide there are confrontations that give the impression that care actually more to themselves than to their political task.
What can you recommend there? The SPD, this tradition party, has three times asked the Chancellor. So something would still be possible? And how the future looks?
The three previous chancellors had to offer in outstanding political times, is the outstanding political solutions and goods a real Alternative. I currently see no prospects for a Chancellor or a Chancellor of the SPD, because no Person is there, and the SPD is not in a state that puts you in the position, from elections to emerge victorious.
In the short term, a rehabilitation measure is not helps time. This means that you send the party in a cure and says, think about it. You have to start, in fact, their perspective of thinking, and the need to connect with a Person. It is not enough simply to make a personnel change.
You must be a Person to the top of the party, which is also associated with a programmatic orientation, so that the people might say This embodies these Person I can trust and so I wouldn’t put it past the party a little. Even if I don’t the whole program support.
The SPD must also think about whether what you are doing is value-oriented. Freedom, justice and solidarity must serve as a Leitorientierung for the voters. This means that the SPD is not measured by whether you spend more or less Euro for this or that measure, but whether the promised justice by.
You must win back, above all, the ability to give people a feeling of security. So a policy to offer the voters of the future and a safe perspective. Either as someone who is still in training, or as someone who has a job that may be at risk. There is a whole series of things that have to do with the party. And this is nothing what I can in 24 days or maybe even twelve months do. But that’s not a must-do, as quickly as possible, in order to be forgotten.
The Interview was conducted by Volker Witting.
Dr. rer. pol. Gero Neugebauer (77) is a German political scientist who worked until retirement at the Otto-Suhr Institute of the Free University of Berlin. In party research, he deals in particular with the SPD and the left party.