A broad alliance of working groups in the SPD wants to prevent Lars Klingbeil from running for the party chairmanship again. This is reported by Spiegel, citing two submissions for the SPD party convention in January. The first motion states, “The chairmanship of the SPD at the federal level may not be held concurrently with a ministerial position within the federal government” and is supported by the Working Group for Labor (AfA), the SPD women, AG 60+, the Working Group Migration and Diversity, the Working Group for Education, and the Working Group SPD queer. The motion text further states that the SPD must strengthen its political independence, programmatic credibility, and capacity to act as a party of workers. This requires a clear organizational and personnel separation between the party leadership and the holding of government offices at the federal level in the current situation. The SPD youth organization Jusos goes a step further in a similarly worded proposal, advocating for a woman as the sole chairman of the SPD. To preserve its political independence, programmatic credibility, and capacity to act, the youth organization demands that the SPD enforce the separation of government offices in the black-red coalition and the party chairmanship, the document states. Furthermore, it demands that the participation of women in top positions of the party be secured. The strongest instrument for this would be a female sole leader, which the Jusos would explicitly welcome. Both motions are clearly aimed against the re-election bid of the current party chairman Lars Klingbeil, who, in addition to his party position, is Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister of the black-red federal government. Klingbeil has so far left it open whether he will stand for the chairmanship again at the party convention. The possibility of the SPD party convention deciding on a formal separation of party and government office is considered unlikely because then the state premiers could no longer hold the top positions in the state associations either. Therefore, the working groups and Jusos are now aiming for a political resolution that only addresses the current situation in the black-red federal government.
Mixed
