A debate is carefully tested in the SPD

Was there’s again one less. Manuela Schwesig, the Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, also took himself out of the game for the time being.

“No,” replied Schwesig on Friday morning on the question of whether she was available for the SPD double tip before the state election in September 2026. In a nutshell, brief and clear.

Just recently, her Saarland colleague Anke Rehlinger had excluded a move to the Berlin party headquarters with the words: “I will not.” And whether Saskia Esken, the current but counted co-chair will be again, is considered questionable in the SPD.

Rehlinger doesn’t want to, Schwesig adorned, Esken shouldn’t. Otherwise, no social democrat is currently pushing into higher party dignity. And that is exactly why it can be very exciting in the SPD.

At the end of June, the SPD plans to re -elect its top at a party conference. The postponement question will be acute at the latest after the black and red coalition negotiations and the membership vote on the contract. Until then, the debate should be on stand-by-otherwise the basic decision could still become an indirect vote via the personnel table.

In any case, there is a lot to discuss. And to argue. After all, the Social Democrats experienced a historical defeat in the Bundestag election, which also falls back to the party leaders Lars Klingbeil and Saskia Esken.

In the meantime, the question of whether a equally occupied dual leadership is required. Some Social Democrats are already testing the debate, putting a return to the individual tip into the room – partly public, but above all behind the scenes. While former advocates of a party leadership of men and women are strikingly back.

A direction is needed, not different announcements. He brought Lars Klingbeil into play as the sole party leader. Riders and Klingbeil should have a good connection to each other. You don’t have to overestimate the advance. Or do you have to understand it as a wink?

Five and a half years ago, the SPD base Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans chose the first double leadership in party history. After the election victory of 2021, the then general secretary and campaign manager Lars Klingbeil followed “Nowabo”, who retired.

According to the SPD statute, both the possibility of a single tip and “two equal chairpersons, of which one woman” is intended. In any case, a party conference would have to be on the line -up. “The party congress decides with a simple majority whether a chairman or a chairman or two equal chairpersons, a woman, will be elected, “.

If the women in the SPD voluntarily cleared their place in the dual leadership and gave it off, that would be surprising. Alone: ​​Why should the woman give way of all things – and not the man?

Klingbeil is also under pressure, but has so far been considered unrivaled. After the Bundestag election, he also took up the chairmanship in order to be able to negotiate with the Union at eye level. An expansion that did not illuminate everyone in the SPD straight away: Wasn’t there a historical election defeat?

But through the trillion coup with Friedrich Merz, Klingbeil was able to raise the stumbling comrades a little again and thereby consolidate its position. Some in the SPD could give the idea that even a sole party leader Klingbeil could be advantageous.

Should the 47-year-old strive for a ministerial post in a Merz government, Klingbeil could appear at the cabinet table as Vice Chancellor and SPD boss in personal union with completely different authority; With greater weight – in view of the unequal balance of power, the union, almost twice as strong, could be important.

The name Bärbel BAS, the former Bundestag president, is also mentioned as a possible candidate for the SPD chair. The 56-year-old has put a social democratic showcase career and is also acted as a possible minister. As a prominent representative of the influential SPD state association North Rhine-Westphalia, she could claim the (power) claim of this association in a future cabinet. Especially since there is a surplus from Lower Saxony, the other Powerhouse of the Social Democrats.

But how attractive is it to be part of a double tip? The question of who is better off by both of them always resonates in this constellation. This can lead to a competitive relationship and provoke the urge to want to separate from the other.

Before and during the election campaign, Klingbeil had torn the topics that can be used to score: the struggle for industrial workplaces, security policy. Saskia Esken could hardly make a stitch with education and digital, where there is rarely reporting success. Eskens Malus was Klingbeil’s bonus.

Who besides you wants to do this in the future?