As of: February 15, 2024, 3:12 p.m
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Raed Saleh, state chairman of the SPD Berlin, speaks at the state party conference of the Berlin SPD.
© Monika Skolimowska/dpa/archive image
The Berlin SPD will elect a new dual leadership in May.
Two candidate duos were already known, and a third was added.
The previous head of the country is there.
It could be exciting.
Berlin - Two were already known, now another duo of candidates has been added for the chairmanship of the Berlin SPD.
The previous SPD party leader Raed Saleh announced on Thursday that he would apply for the top post again - together with district politician Luise Lehmann from Marzahn-Hellersdorf.
Both presented themselves to journalists as a self-confident team of applicants: “We are the solution to the questions that concern the SPD,” said Lehmann.
“A strong SPD needs strong leadership, which is why we agreed to run.
We think we bring what the Berlin SPD needs now.”
Both want to address the issue of social justice, both are committed to free education.
The real division in society is between rich and poor, Saleh said.
“I don’t want another wave of gentrification.” The joint candidacy is based on trust – and on differences.
Lehmann also pointed out the differences between the two: She comes from Marzahn-Hellersdorf in the east, he from Spandau in the west of Berlin, she is only 27, he is already 46, she has experience in local politics, he at the state level.
“We have a lot in common,” said the doctor.
“This combination is our strength.”
Lehmann, who says she has been active in the Jusos since she was 13, emphasized that she sees it as her job to introduce left-wing content even more strongly.
She was a staunch opponent of the coalition with the CDU, but continuing it was currently the only sensible option.
At the same time, she announced that she would not seek any further conservative alliances.
The previous week, Neukölln's district mayor Martin Hikel and former state secretary Nicola Böcker-Giannini had announced their interest in leading the regional association.
Last Monday, the deputy state chairman Kian Niroomand and the co-chair of the Berlin SPD women, Jana Bertels, followed.
The election of the new SPD party executive is planned at a party conference at the end of May.
It is conceivable that the SPD will conduct a member survey and there will be a kind of election campaign between the applicant duos with various events at the party base.
The federal SPD did the same in 2019.
Nothing has been decided on this in the Berlin SPD yet.
The Berlin SPD is currently led by Saleh and Economics Senator Franziska Giffey.
Giffey, mayor until April 2023, has declared that she will not run again.
Background: In May 2023, the delegates at an SPD state party conference decided that in the future the dual leadership should “not entirely” consist of people who also play a key role in the government.
When announcing their candidacy, the other two duos made critical comments about the current SPD policy and the work of the previous leadership team.
“The SPD Berlin needs a new start,” demanded Niroomand (33) and Bertels (35).
“It is time to move away from the culture of absolute retention of power and the lack of taking responsibility of the last few years.”
Hikel (37) and Böcker-Giannini (49) distanced themselves from the affordable city concept that Saleh advocates and which includes free daycare centers and free use of public transport for schoolchildren.
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For Saleh, there is a lot at stake: Hardly anyone else has been active in a central position in the state SPD for as long as he has, and of all the applicants known to date, his person is the least likely to represent a new beginning in the party.
He has been a member of the state executive board since 2008, he has been parliamentary group leader since 2011, and party leader with Giffey since November 2020.
He is considered the strong man of the SPD, but has had to cope with some setbacks: at the party conference in June 2022, he only received 57 percent of the votes.
When the House of Representatives election was repeated in February 2023, he lost his direct mandate in Spandau.
And the SPD achieved a historically poor result of 18.4 percent.
During the exploratory talks he is said to have been part of the small circle of those who pushed for a coalition with the CDU.
This did not make him popular in the party.
In a member survey there was only a narrow majority for this coalition.
Against this background, the decision about the new party leadership will definitely be exciting.
At that time, not only the Jusos had positioned themselves against Saleh - and Giffey - but also several district associations.
Niroomand, as the SPD district chairman in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, who is on the left of the party, had publicly advocated against the black and red and for the opposition role.
The question of who the new state chairmen will be is therefore also about how the SPD should stop the decline of the people's party that was once strong, especially in Berlin.
The SPD also performed poorly in the partial repeat of the federal election in Berlin last Sunday.
The second vote result of only 14.6 percent worries many comrades in the party.
After all, that is a minus of 7.8 percent in the electoral districts in question.
The question is: How can the negative trend be stopped?
The next round of voting is scheduled for June 9th, the European elections.
dpa