SPD with a sensitive damper after poll high: Massive party resignations despite election victory

Created: 01/16/2022, 22:23

By: Jonas Raab

SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz is doing well in current polls, but his party is shrinking.

© Emmanuele Contini/imago

The SPD has a good laugh at the moment.

Contrary to all summer predictions from 2021, she is Chancellor with Olaf Scholz and dominates in polls.

But the number of members depresses the mood.

Berlin – Olaf Scholz* is the first SPD member to sit in the Federal Chancellery since 2005.

The election result in September 2021 was historic for the Social Democrats after years of downward slide.

Scholz has been in office as head of the traffic light government for a good month.

The red flight of fancy seems to continue despite the confusion of the corona* and the question of compulsory vaccination* – if it weren't for a number that depresses the mood.

The omicron weeks of the pandemic are not an easy time to establish a new government.

Sometimes the vaccine * is missing, sometimes there is confusion about the complicated corona rule patchwork - and more and more often it drives the walkers * onto the street.

Accordingly, the current surveys on the popularity of politicians are divided.

The SPD* still does quite well.

SPD in the survey high: Scholz is even well received by Union voters

According to a current Insa survey * for the 

, 71 percent of those surveyed in the new federal government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz miss a clear course in corona policy.

And yet: Scholz is well received *: In the current "Politbarometer" on ZDF, 65 percent of all respondents rated the work of the SPD man as "rather good".

Only 17 percent think that Scholz does his job "rather poorly".

The social democrat even gets approval from the ranks of the Union: At 53 percent, more than half of the conservative respondents in the “Politbarometer” rate his work as good.

And in SPD Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, who is on the way to becoming the most popular politician in Germany *, Scholz has found the perfect companion in the corona crisis.

SPD members: Despite victory in the federal election, 22,000 are giving back their party membership

What else is there to shock the SPD?

The membership numbers!

Despite its victory in the federal elections, the SPD lost members last year.

According to a spokeswoman, the party had 393,727 members at the turn of the year – a year earlier it was 404,305.

According to the information, more than 22,000 members gave back their party membership or died in the course of the year.

On the other hand, there were 12,266 entries - most of them in September and October, directly before and after the victory in the federal elections*.

About a third of the SPD members are women, the average age is 61 years.