It's just after 6 pm when Olaf Scholz enters the stage in the Willy-Brandt-Haus with a petrified expression. Only 45 percent of the SPD members wanted him as the new party leader, it is a brutal defeat for the vice-chancellor and finance minister. In a few words Scholz congratulates the winning team that the party must now gather behind Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken.
The surprise winners look euphoric. "Pretty great," Esken calls the result. Walter-Borjans thanks Scholz and Klara Geywitz for the fair duel and General Secretary Lars Klingbeil for the organization. "That was fun," exclaims the ex-Minister of Finance of North Rhine-Westphalia. Then he and Esken pose with thumbs up for the photographers.
What has happened there? The SPD members have voted with 53 percent for a relatively unknown, GroKo-skeptical team - and almost the entire party leadership showed the red card. It is a vote against the next so, an uprising against the role as a junior partner of the Union. A revolution.
Where are you travelling to?
The SPD will be another party in the future. But what kind? Esken and Walter-Borjans must now show that they have a plan. In the coming days they will try to communicate with the key players in the party. There is not much time left. The party convention will take place in just six days.
On Monday afternoon, the executive committee of the parliamentary group meets, on Tuesday and Wednesday the party committees come together. Among the deputies, most had insisted on a victory of Scholz and Geywitz. What is the relationship between Esken and Walter Borjans now? "The work is just starting now," says Wiebke Esdar. The deputy from Bielefeld is one of the few supporters of the winning duo in the group. "Our biggest task will be to find a common path."
In the video: The decision of the SPD
AFP
It will be important to involve the loser camp. Although the party establishment has suffered a severe defeat, Walter Borjans and Esken rely on the support of ministers, prime ministers and members of parliament. If they retreat or even shoot cross-country, the failure of the new leadership could be a self-fulfilling prophecy, the winners say.
The GroKo threatens to waver
It's completely unclear how the Grand Coalition will continue. Esken and Walter-Borjans have recently made it clear that they do not want to leave the Alliance head over heels. However, because they have scored particularly among the government-tired Social Democrats, they can not just pretend that nothing had happened. (Read here a comment on the new SPD duo)
The two have formulated in recent weeks, some conditions for the survival of the coalition, the basic pension without assets test counts to a reworking of the climate package and the increase of the minimum wage to twelve euros. These conditions were widely read as the last attempt to mobilize a few followers - now they are suddenly the program of the new duo. Walter Borjans and Esken have to stick to it if they do not want to get a credibility problem right away. Walter-Borjans announced that evening that he would also participate in the meetings of the coalition committee in the future. It is normal that the party leaders attended the top round with Chancellor Angela Merkel, he said.
Whether CDU and CSU are even rudimentarily ready to accommodate the SPD is highly questionable. The Conservatives are themselves in the midst of hard direction struggles. Nobody in the Union leadership also has a relationship of trust with Walter Borjans and Esken, and because coalitions are often based on strong relationships among the people involved, Black and Red could waver.
Much will depend on whether Walter Borjans and Esken succeed in getting the party over. In the Bundestag faction, in the Cabinet, under the Prime Minister - everywhere in the SPD establishment horror over the result is great. The new duo will somehow have to integrate the opposing camp, but if anyone there feels like joining in, the coming days will show.
It will be particularly important for three Social Democrats:
- Malu Dreyer, the acting boss, allegedly has been toying for weeks to say goodbye to the future party leadership. But because no one else within the party has such authority, as the Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, now many of the victorious camp may now pull back to her.
- Secretary-General Klingbeil could also be a link to the government camp, provided that he retains his office.
- And Scholz also has an important role to play: his result is a disaster. But he can barely get off the boat because resigning could seem like he wants to leave the party to himself. In addition, the coalition with him probably lose the most important stabilizer.
It will be hot days until the party congress next weekend.
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