Immediately before the start of the membership survey on the future SPD presidency, one of the candidate duos declared its withdrawal. The Bundestag member Hilde Mattheis and Ver.di chief economist Dierk Hirschel have withdrawn from the competition.
They justified the step at the last of 23 SPD regional conferences in Munich with the fact that they wanted to increase thereby the chances of success of another left candidate duo. All in all there are six teams left.
Member of Parliament Mattheis said that in recent weeks, unfortunately, failed to agree among the four left-wing candidate teams on a jointly supported top duo. Therefore, she and Hirschel have now decided, "we are clearing the way to increase the chances of success of a left leading candidate."
"The party is alive"
At the opening of the last regional conference, SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil said the rounds of talks for the future party leadership were a success. "We have shown that this party lives." The interest in the 23 events held nationwide in the past weeks was very large.
In the Munich Löwenbräukeller came about party leaders about a thousand people to pursue the idea of standing for election candidate duo. Who will prevail, is completely open before the beginning of Monday vote among the SPD members. Even the most prominent candidate, who with the Brandenburg national politician Klara Geywitz candidate Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, so far could not achieve a clear favorite status. (Read here why, after initial hesitation, the Minister of Finance decided to run for office).
