SPD: Party is looking for compass: Six questions about the SPD party conference

After this party conference, the SPD has a lot to digest. The disaster in the Bundestag election is far from being coped with: 16.4 percent, a low of party history. Then the shock: The SPD gives its own Vice Chancellor a deep blow, which himself frightens its critics. Then she almost drives into the parade when the defense Minister Boris Pistorius, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. How should the Social Democrats come at eye level with the CDU and Chancellor Friedrich Merz?

In any case, the SPD chooses its new double tip with results that could hardly be unequivocally: Bärbel BAS, the new, the party left with the traditional SPD vita, proudly runs 95 percent. Lars Klingbeil, the Vice Chancellor, the power of power, ends up at less than 65 percent – there was no SPD leader that occurred without opposing candidates.

Is Klingbeil permanently damaged?

The result is a political slap in the face for the party leader. He has lost trust in his own ranks: with his rigorous personnel policy after the election; with the strategy to surround themselves on all important items with confidants; With the fact that he had the debate about Olaf Scholz’s controversial candidacy for the chancellor – just like later the party’s internal disassembly of his co -party leader Saskia. At the party congress there is always energetic applause for those who went away empty-handed in Klingbeil’s power carousel: in addition to Esken, ex-labor minister Hubertus Heil.

Klingbeil would have all the reasons to take the result personally. But immediately after the election shock, he makes it clear that he will not change his course because of this. Pistorius strengthens the compatriot from Lower Saxony: “In a year at the latest, probably earlier, no one talks about it anymore because we are so social democrats.” But Klingbeil will have to work hard to be perceived positively again.

Is Bärbel Bas now the strong voice of the SPD?

In any case, the Minister of Labor has the full back of the party – and she represents topics that could hardly be more social democratic. Nobody at the party congress has represented the workers SPD more credibly than the straightforward-speaking Duisburg woman who has also welded since the technical vocational school.

Shortly before the party congress, she presented a billion-dollar bill for the SPD heart topic of secure pensions. The delegates also inspired the former women’s footballer with the criticism that women are also “exposed to this sexist garbage in politics”.

All of this is likely to help BAS be perceived as an equal partner of the previously very dominant Vice Chancellor. “I am not available for alibi parity,” says Bas. This was also to be understood as an announcement of her eye-to-eye claim in addition to the power-conscious Klingbeil. It remains to be seen whether they will treat each other to the spotlight, as is rumored in the party headquarters.

What does the party congress result for the black and red coalition mean?

For Chancellor Merz, Klingbeil is the most important SPD contact person – and at the same time with a view to the next Bundestag election, the most important competitor was today. Klingbeil’s weak result could move the power structure of the two, shake authority. In the event of controversial decisions, Merz can now always question whether the SPD leader has the full backing of his party and his parliamentary group at all. If the Union wants to attack its coalition partner, Klingbeil is the weak point.

At the same time, the Vice Chancellor is under pressure to push through social democratic politics in the coalition. He could always prove that he deserves his party’s trust. Usually the finance minister and Vice Chancellor runs a rather moderating course, now the black and red clashes could become significantly harder. It remains to be seen whether party conference star BAS wants to enforce pure SPD in your Ministry of Labor – a lawyer with a large budget.

Has the SPD changed its attitude on central topics of the coalition?

The closest to this came to a debate on a debate, where the opinions differ widely. In hours of crisis talks, it was prevented behind the scenes that there was an open field battle between Minister Pistorius and Juso boss Philipp Türmer at the speaker. In the end there is a compromise.

“We do not want an activable legal option to use conscripts before not all measures to increase voluntary increase.

Attempts to move to a softer course towards Russia were recognizable in the sand. However, the voices were more critical of the Israeli government and the warfare under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Our solidarity also applies to people in the Gaza area who have been sold by one corner in their own area for so long,” said ex-Prime Minister Stephan Weil, who was on the first day. In the meantime, you should be afraid of “no longer being able to return home alive if you try to get food in the morning”.

Does the SPD have a plan for the way out of the crisis?

At the party congress, the SPD wanted to send a departure signal. But in many fields it looks disoriented. Many speeches were bursting with social democratic rhetoric. “Change begins with us”, the motto of the party congress, has not yet been filled with content.

The SPD now wants to take two years and develop a new basic program. This apparently applies: in doubt back to the roots. It is indicated that the SPD focuses on traditional social democratic issues: the struggle for industrial workplaces, respect for promotion stories. In addition, a simpler language, less phrases. At least that’s what you have done.

What does this mean for the upcoming state elections?

Five state parliaments will be elected next year-also in Rhineland-Palatinate and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the SPD with Alexander Schweitzer and Manuela Schwesig president. It is unlikely that these elections will be decided by the federal political mood.

Ultimately, however, it will be important whether the SPD will find a jerk out of the party conference or fall back into old patterns. Heil, a loser from Klingbeil’s personnel policy, urged his party to “not confuse dispute with auto -aggressive self -confliction from the SPD”. “No cabal,” he said, “we had that, that broke us”.