Manuel Gava: SPD member of the Bundestag admits cocaine use

The Osnabrück member of the Bundestag Manuel Gava (SPD) has admitted that he regularly consumed cocaine – and is withdrawing his candidacy again. The 33-year-old explained in an interview with the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” (Tuesday edition) that he wanted to escape the pressure of Berlin politics and private problems. The confession followed research by the “NOZ” and the Berlin “Tagesspiegel”, in which evidence of Gava’s drug use had emerged.

“I screwed up,” the SPD politician told the newspapers. “That was especially at the weekend. I pushed a lot in the evenings to distract myself.” He admitted that he could not endure the constant stress as a member of the Bundestag and a public figure and that he had consumed cocaine “with a certain regularity” over a period of several months from the summer to the end of 2023.

Gava justified his decision not to run for the Bundestag again for “health reasons”. At the beginning of September 2024, Gava made it public that he was suffering from the autoimmune disease lupus, which severely limited his work. Gava did not provide proof of the illness, as “NOZ” and “Tagesspiegel” report.

Gava has represented the constituency of Osnabrück, hometown of Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, in the Bundestag since 2021. At that time, Gava had surprisingly won the direct mandate and thus beat out Mathias Middelberg, chairman of the Lower Saxony state group in the CDU parliamentary group.

In the SPD in the major city in Lower Saxony, however, dissatisfaction with their candidate grew in the summer of 2024, as the “NOZ” reports: Gava missed appointments, neglected party work and was rarely seen in the Bundestag. At the same time, there was public speculation that Defense Minister Boris Pistorius could run as a candidate in his hometown. Pistorius is now running in Hanover.