As of: February 26, 2024, 7:55 p.m
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Raed Saleh, co-chair of the SPD in Berlin.
© Fabian Sommer/dpa
Three duos are applying for the dual leadership of the Berlin SPD.
It is now clear that the party base will have a say in choosing the new leadership.
Berlin - In the Berlin SPD, the members decide on the party's new dual leadership.
The SPD state executive committee decided this on Monday, as the party announced.
After an intensive discussion, there was approval of 69 percent in the state executive committee for this approach, explained party leader Franziska Giffey afterwards.
The aim is to put as many members as possible in a position to have a say in important decisions about the direction of the party.
The member survey is scheduled to start on April 6th and run until April 19th.
According to the information, all SPD members who belonged to the party as of February 23rd are allowed to take part.
The survey should be carried out as an online vote and as a postal vote.
If none of the three candidate duos achieved an absolute majority, a second round with the two best-placed teams of two would follow from May 2nd to 17th.
Based on the member survey, the party leadership will then be elected at a party conference on May 25th.
In the past few weeks, three applicant duos had applied for dual leadership.
The acting co-chairman and SPD parliamentary group leader Raed Saleh is running together with the district politician Luise Lehmann from Marzahn-Hellersdorf.
Neukölln's district mayor Martin Hikel is applying together with former state secretary Nicola Böcker-Giannini.
The third duo consists of the previous deputy state chairman Kian Niroomand and the co-chair of the Berlin SPD women, Jana Bertels.
“We welcome the fact that the members of the SPD state executive committee, who originally wanted a decision in a small group, have now complied with our request for the membership decision,” said Nicola Böcker-Giannini and Martin Hikel in the evening.
The duo sees this as a “first step for a fundamental new beginning”.
In the coming weeks, the candidates will engage in a kind of intra-party election campaign.
Among other things, several member forums are planned where all duos will appear together in front of the party base and seek approval.
The federal SPD did something similar in 2019.
Since November 2020, the Berlin SPD has been led by Saleh and Economics Senator Giffey.
Giffey, mayor until April 2023, has already 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.
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There has been great unrest in Berlin's SPD for a long time.
Many members are worried because the party has been going steadily downhill for years.
In the repeat election to the House of Representatives in 2023, the SPD achieved a historically poor result with 18.4 percent and ended up far behind the CDU.
After around six and a half years of alliance with the Greens and the Left, the party then entered into a coalition with the CDU - as a junior partner.
A member vote before the coalition agreement was signed resulted in only a narrow majority in favor of cooperation with the CDU in the government.
The applicant duos for the party leadership have different recipes in terms of program, party work and communication.
The challengers of the Raed Saleh/Luise Lehmann team in particular want a consistent new beginning.
All candidates are united by the goal of stopping the negative trend and making the Berlin SPD stronger again and the leading political force in the coming elections.
The first test will take place on June 9th with the European elections.
dpa