Juso boss Kevin Kühnert: "I do not compete"

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You have been pondering for weeks whether you are running for the SPD presidency. How did you decide?

Kühnert: I do not compete. That was not an easy decision. Many people have contacted me and asked me to run for office. Others advised against it.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why do not you start?

Kühnert: You should only be able to run for the competition with the clear conviction that you want to be able to fulfill the office in the best possible way and to be able to do so with all consistency. First and foremost, I am a human, and every human being has to evaluate for himself what he can do under the circumstances given to him.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You did not dare to run for office?

Kühnert: Do not worry, I can stand a lot. But even a party leadership supported by the members must work with the framework conditions that are there. There is nothing in a party against the board, the parliamentary party and the apparatus. Nothing would have been more negligent than to produce now a hopeful curve far into the sky, which leads then after few weeks to disappointments. Now some have said: Kühnert against Scholz, that would be a spectacle! But that was my concern. We would have been in an arena campaign. This is interesting for outsiders, but harms the SPD because it continues to split emotionally. We are a political party and not an entertainment show.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Did you have the fear, a duel Scholz against Kühnert could split the SPD?

Kühnert: Neither of us would have wanted it. I get along with Olaf Scholz. But Scholz and I are often seen as two antipodes in the SPD. With the search for a new party leadership, I want to be able to clarify the substance of essential questions by convincing members rather than driving them to the trees. The SPD in its DNA is not a party in which to stage a revolution. Some believe that one could do what Jeremy Corbyn did to the Labor Party. I think that's a different strategy. The SPD is an evolutionary party, in which even groups that are somewhere in between, must be taken. And this should be done by someone who has a truly integrative power and can unite more than 40 or 50 percent of the members.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But you have always said that the SPD must finally carry out their substantive dispute on the open stage, not in back rooms. A duel Scholz against Kühnert would have been the chance.

Kühnert: The chance also exists. The applicant field differs in the positions to the grand coalition, to the black zero, to the climate policy. And also 80,000 Jusos want to be convinced. I'm not worried that there will be a lack of controversy.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The party mind is splintered, is expected to compete with five teams. The candidates take each other's votes away. Will the right wing win in the end?

Kühnert: It is perfectly legitimate for several applicants to start first. Many teams agree that they are calling for fundamental change, which is good and drives the debate. They all have a responsibility to look: how is the mood developing? How does the party base react? I hope they pull together at the crucial moment.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Who do you support?

Kühnert: I too will take a close look at the candidates. For example, Norbert Walter-Borjans is in the running today. He comes very close to my personal wishes in terms of content and form. He started as finance minister in North Rhine-Westphalia with the purchase of tax CDs, thereby dealing with unpleasant people and thus proved that he stands for genuine distribution justice.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So you support the duo Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken?

Kühnert: That decides the majority in my association. But this is a duo where I have a great inner peace, because I know both from the collaboration. I would see the party in good hands. If there is no Juso candidacy, I think it is desirable that we agree on a recommendation. These are not about blank checks, but about obliging candidates to positions that are important to us.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Norbert Walter-Borjans has not been NRW finance minister for two years, he is 66 years old. Why should he, of all people, be able to embody the future of the SPD?

Kühnert: After my experiences of the last two years, I'm really the last to engage in any age discussions. Age alone does not say anything. I am concerned with credibility. Certainly the NRW government has not been voted out because of the financial policy of Norbert Walter-Borjans. He has recently written a book on tax policy that makes the social-democratic heart beat faster. And he's doing a very pleasant thing: even without his ministry, he's trying to get involved in this party and to develop its contents - without making a fuss about his person.

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SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why did you wait so long with your explanation that you do not compete?

Kühnert: I had a clear gut feeling relatively early on, that the decision would be made as it has now fallen. Nevertheless, I wanted to wait and see how the field of applicants developed and whether a situation could arise in which the starting point was that I should have had the political necessity over my own interests.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So you wanted to wait, if you might have to do it?

Kühnert: Nobody has to. But you can not make it too easy. Now, in the last few meters of the process, I get the impression that there is a rich selection.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You have been pretty fluffed, as far as the premature end of the Grand Coalition. Now someone with Olaf Scholz, who stands for their continuation like no other. Do not you have to fear losing a lot of influence in the SPD, because now you have the call: Well, in case of doubt, he does not jump anyway?

Kühnert: If you want to interpret this maliciously, you can see it that way. However, I would find it strange if the fact that, after 20 months as Juso chairman, I would not run for the highest office of a 156-year-old party at the first opportunity would be used to invalidate my person. And to the Grand Coalition: The controversy about it will be part of the argument between the candidates. There are enough teams in the distance to the Grand Coalition.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Have you been flirting publicly with your candidacy for too long?

Kühnert: I did not flirt. That was a very serious thought process until just a few days ago. There were tendencies, but I did not make that decision easy. Well, my summer vacation was not as relaxing as other summer holidays in the past. These are questions that you go to bed with in the evening and wake up with them in the morning.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are you for an exit from the grand coalition? Or are you ticking differently in the meantime?

Kühnert: We Jusos have always said that we stick to the dates. We now have a mid-term review. That is not alone in the hands of the Federal Government. Of course she can write something down from her perspective. But in the end, as the SPD, we have to make a political decision that goes beyond working out a checklist and answering the question of whether this coalition makes people hungry for democracy and parties or whether the way of governing strengthens forces that we do not want to strengthen. You know where I stand in this question.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What happens to the SPD when Olaf Scholz wins the race for the party presidency?

Kühnert: Then the party will not go down because its historical task is independent of persons.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And you stay in the SPD?

Kühnert: What a question! Maybe we'll just wait and see how the members decide. I do not see that anyone can expect to do the race today. That is democratic and exciting at the same time. And that Olaf Scholz is a candidate, is very honest and, by the way, legitimate, because he sets the current course to vote. Whatever one may think about it.