Co-chair still open: SPD leadership relies on Klingbeil as party leader

Co-chair still open
SPD leadership relies on Klingbeil as party leader

The incumbent co-party leader Norbert Walter-Borjans does not want to run again at the SPD federal party conference. With Lars Klingbeil, a successor who is highly regarded in the party already seems to be in the starting blocks. It is still open who will compete alongside him in the dual leadership.

In the SPD, General Secretary Lars Klingbeil is expected to stand for chairmanship. Several members of the leadership of the Social Democrats told the Reuters news agency that they expected an announcement of the 43-year-old Lower Saxony in the next few days. Elsewhere, however, it was said that nothing had been decided yet. It is unclear which woman would compete in a double head with a cleaver. In conversation for this are the Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Manuela Schwesig, and the incumbent co-party leader Saskia Esken.

The new election of the party leadership is scheduled for the second weekend in December at a regular federal party conference. Co-party leader Norbert Walter-Borjans does not want to run again. The SPD party executive wants to resolve an additional party congress on Tuesday evening in a switching conference, which should decide on a coalition agreement between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP to form a federal government. A digital special party conference on December 3rd was named as the most likely variant in party circles. The procedure for the election of the new party chairman could also be discussed in the board of directors.

In the event of a candidacy, Klingbeil could, according to the party’s opinion, clearly count on his election as party leader. He stands for a generation change, and as the organizer of the successful federal election campaign, this can hardly be taken from him. Klingbeil is considered a pragmatist who belongs to the conservative Seeheimer circle of the SPD – but who at the same time has a close relationship of trust with the party left and former Juso boss Kevin Kühnert. He was proposed as general secretary by the then SPD leader Martin Schulz in 2017 and remained in this post also under SPD leader Andrea Nahles and their successors Esken and Walter-Borjans.

Klingbeil is currently organizing the coalition negotiations with the Greens and the FDP. When deciding on a candidacy, it should also play a role for him that his chances of advancement in the Bundestag parliamentary group or in the federal government are limited primarily due to regional proportional representation. He had made a name for himself as a defense politician and as a network policy spokesman. For some, he is therefore considered a candidate for the post of defense minister – but this is considered unlikely because Hubertus Heil as labor minister would probably already be represented in the new cabinet by a Lower Saxon.

Should there be a change at the head of the parliamentary group, the head of the left, Matthias Miersch, expects good chances – also from Lower Saxony, who is in close contact with Klingbeil and Kühnert. In the ballot of the SPD members on the successor to Nahles in autumn 2019, Klingbeil did not run. He justified this at the time by saying that he had not found the right woman to run for the dual leadership that was introduced at the time. At that time, too, Klingbeil had tried to get Schwesig. The popular head of government in Schwerin is still undecided, it was said in SPD circles. Co-party leader Esken is also still keeping a candidacy open.

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