As Andrea Nahles was a year ago, the SPD’s Boss, she had a great Plan: the downward trend to stop, and to lead the SPD to its former strength. That’s what went wrong. From Berlin, Sabine Kinkartz.
Of course, the social Democrats had hoped to the last that it would turn out for them in the European elections and in state elections in Bremen got off lightly. Tirelessly they had gathered for their party and their candidates and recruited the big – time last updated on Friday, on the campaign statements of the SPD in Bremen, to the private from Berlin, the SPD-Head, with two Ministers arrived.
Bremen, a small city-state in the North of Germany, for the SPD have a special meaning. 73 years, the social Democrats were throughout the mayor. Bremen has always been a red stronghold. If the SPD can’t win here, then you can take it anywhere.
Lost Electorate
The defeat was on the Friday in the air. In Bremen’s historical old town, the SPD had set up a white tent roof. Although the Bank were rows filled with around 200 spectators quite well. There was music and Free waffles. Mood did not want to pay anyway. The SPD has noticeably lost the wire to their constituents.
Earlier, the SPD was the party of the workers. She joined for higher wages and lower working hours. Today, the Bremen mayor promises affordable housing, while also in his city, Rents are on the rise. For this, he garners a murmur among the spectators, because everyone knows that the SPD can’t put a brake on development in the cities alone.
Unpopular Party Boss
Unfortunately, the SPD leader Andrea Nahles acts. For most citizens, the 48-Year-old has never been particularly popular. Boisterous and loud as they occur, often seemingly haphazardly in awkward situations. In Bremen, you irritated your viewers right at the beginning of your speech with the sentence: “I can’t say that I love Bremen”, and he laughed a little awkwardly. The additional “Because I love the Eifel, where I live”, could also be nothing left to save. “I’ve never liked,” says a spectator in Bremen.
Also within the SPD, Nahles device is getting more and more under pressure. Already been rumors about that you should make to the actual election disaster the chief posts in the SPD group in the Bundestag, it has, since October of 2017 held a stick. The failure of the SPD Chancellor candidate Martin Schulz is interested, allegedly for the Post.
SPD party head Andrea Nahles on election night in Berlin
However, the party made – and group leader on election night, not the impression, as if you can simply push aside. “I would like to encourage all SPD members and our followers, to look confidently into the future – even if the results of pain today,” said Andrea Nahles of the SPD Headquarters in Berlin. The results would show that the party had still much to do. “I say, head in the direction of the SPD,” said Nahles, and we had the impression that in order to my self also.
Promise you could not keep
Nahles it, which led the SPD in the meanwhile, a third party government coalition with the CDU and the CSU was. Within a year she was not able, however, to develop a political profile distinct from the Union, and the boundaries of, and – even more important – as such by the voters is also perceived. For Nahles, who had promised their party, exactly, is a Disaster.
The SPD does not profit from the cooperation in the coalition
Actually, the Comrades wanted to go after the lost election to the Bundestag 2017 in the Opposition. “The SPD is needed!”, Nahles campaigned instead for a reissue of the Grand coalition. They wanted to reform the party and at the same time successfully govern. “We will succeed, guys. Together we are strong. We pack the. This is my promise.”
Colorless instead of bright red
In the result, the SPD focused on your core business: social justice. In the Grand coalition it was for families, workers and pensioners financial improvements. However, in the case of the citizens is not recognised as the performance of the Comrades, but also of the entire coalition dedicated to the CDU, the thus gaining additional expertise in the social field. The SPD does not seem to be all that important for the policy and the success of the coalition.
Added to this, Andrea Nahles, as she was elected in April, 2018 to the SPD Manager, took over a party in free fall. In September 2017, the social Democrats in the Bundestag election had a run-in with 20.5 percent of the vote, their worst result in postwar history. Under Nahles, the polls continue downhill, at times, up to 14 per cent.
Revolt from the left
In October 2018, the SPD experienced in the state elections in Bavaria and Hesse a Disaster. In Bavaria, the party reached only nine percent of the vote. In the SPD party headquarters, Willy-Brandt-Haus in Berlin, looked at the SPD Chairman was desperately searching for words and explanations, was perplexed and frustrated. The voices of those in the SPD who wanted to go into Opposition and politically renew, were in the following weeks again, louder.
Juso-chief Kevin Kühnert sits Andrea Nahles in the neck
Especially from the left wing and the party of young under Kevin Kühnert, the Chairman of the Jusos, the youth organisation of the SPD, got Nahles considerable pressure. The SPD Chairman has reacted by accelerating the ongoing intra-party reform process. To deliver instead of only at the end of 2019, a result that should already be available at the beginning of the year, a new political concept.
A (ineffective) step to the left
In fact, the party’s Executive Committee presented in February, the programme “welfare state 2025”. In the center of the end of the “Hartz IV”. Thus, the basic security benefits for job-seekers called, the subject to strict conditions and the threat of sanctions is connected. It is part of the “Agenda 2010”, which was introduced in 2003 under the former SPD-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and with the still party members and SPD voters rag.
Demonstration against social cuts in October 2004
Many Comrades feel that the Agenda 2010 as socially unjust, and they make up for the decline of social democracy responsible. With the social state concept, the SPD wants to get away from the controls and sanctions. Instead, the state should be perceived as a helping Partner. “We meet people with great Confidence,” said Andrea Nahles, the idea of the concept. Thousands of proposals have collected the party for their renewal process, and with many social and environmental interest groups will be discussed. “We are now ready to shapes from the findings of a new, social-democratic policy.”
Nothing but hot air?
A policy that is not within the Grand coalition, but not enforceable. This made the CDU and the CSU immediately clear. There will be no beyond the coalition agreement in addition to projects. The short upswing in the polls, the SPD is renowned for their welfare state concept, prepared the to an abrupt end.
The pressure and the defeats have left party leader Andrea Nahles visible traces. Nahles know that your chair is shaking. A lot of time in order to consolidate their Status, not in the face of three state elections in the Eastern German States of Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg in the autumn.
In the Grand coalition or to go?
In December, the SPD must be party Chairman, on a Federal party for re-election. Then, the social Democrats want to decide whether you want to continue the coalition with the Union, or terminate. There would be new elections would have to worry about the SPD, in its desolate condition to be in the Bundestag further decimated. Then only the development in the Opposition would be. Neither a left-wing Alliance of the Greens, the SPD and the left party, a renewed coalition with the Union would be according to the current state a majority in Parliament.