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Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans. Really now? Really now.
The parliamentary deputies, who are largely unknown until their candidacy for the party presidency, and the former state finance minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, who is known for his purchases of tax CDs, will lead the SPD in the future. Hardly anyone wanted to believe that, only a few have seen it coming. And yet this is not even a particularly close result of the second ballot logically explainable.
The election of Donald Trump, the decision of the British for Brexit - these political quakes were hardly on the bill. Politically, the SPD presidency may go one or two tiers below, but the pattern is the same: the establishment - or what voters consider it - gets the receipt issued.
In the case of the SPD, a lot has accumulated before this bill. It started in 2003 with Agenda 2010, it continued in 2005 with the first grand coalition under Angela Merkel, which introduced the same time the pension at 67. It was followed by a party leader Sigmar Gabriel, who promised less Basta and more base, then more often and louder Basta to say than most of his predecessors together. And it was followed by two other grand coalitions with painful compromises, tough negotiations and a constant demographic decline.
In the video: Olaf Scholz wins congratulations
Jörg Carstensen / dpa
With each of these decisions, the willingness of the party base to miss everything that was put before it vanished. This did not change the fact that the last major coalitions made a sensational amount of social democratic politics. The small-scale compromise, the heart of Olaf Scholz's political model, was less and less communicable in the party. Contributed to this were those comrades who talked their own achievements down. And the election results of recent years have meant that fewer and fewer SPD members believe the assurances of the top, with the next government, the next legislative plan, everything will be better again. The confidence in the top, it was in the end.
But is it really possible to speak of "the base" if only 54 percent of the members have voted at all? Yes you can. After all, the other 46 percent did not even think it was important enough to vote online.
The characters are not seen
A final alarm that the old order is no longer working should have been the choice of Andrea Nahles in April 2018. Although her challenger, the largely unknown Flensburg Mayor Simone Lange, gave a remarkably bad speech at the congress, Nahles just barely got 66 percent. But the party leadership did not see the sign. It focused on governmental trade and left the party alone with its almost pathological yearning for pure, unadulterated social democracy. Now the receipt is there.
What does that mean, for example for the grand coalition? Especially Walter-Borjans has avoided in the party's election campaign to commit itself to an end to the alliance - but who prevails against the establishment, then just have to do a few things differently than the establishment.
And, secondly, the Union would first have to build something like a bond of trust with the two newcomers. Such a relationship with Saskia Esken do not even have their colleagues from the SPD parliamentary group. It may well be that somehow it will continue in the end, but it does not look good for the coalition.
And when it comes to the election? If the Union even now aspires to it, given the state of the SPD? During the election campaign, Walter Borjans advised his party against establishing a chancellor candidate in its present constitution. Nevertheless, someone will have to run for office. Should he be that, should Esken do it?
In any case, Olaf Scholz can not really be considered for that. He is one of those who, on this historic Saturday evening, received their receipt from their comrades for the last one and a half decades of the Social Democratic Party.
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