Georg Maier was elected the Social Democrats' top candidate at a state delegates' conference in Erfurt on Saturday with 84.8 percent of the votes cast. Maier reaffirmed the SPD's claim to government and announced that he wanted to place more emphasis on social policy.
There were candidacies for a whole series of candidate positions behind Maier - but in the end, the candidates proposed by the state executive committee usually prevailed in the promising positions. Even Finance Minister Heike Taubert, who has to deal with AfD right-winger Björn Höcke in her Greiz constituency, did not manage to move up from twelfth place to second. The Social Democrats, who have been part of the red-red-green government coalition since 2014, are open to talks with all parties except the AfD. “With the SPD, there will be no state government that will work with the Afd in any way,” said Maier. He could imagine a one-off payment for people with low pensions.