Why Saskia Esken’s exit the SPD poses a problem

Saskia Esken puts an end to an unworthy spectacle: The long-time SPD co-chair does not want to run for the office again. “I now give up my party chairman and make room for the renewal,” said the 63-year-old on Sunday evening in the “Report from Berlin”. She is concerned that the SPD can now make it clear that it has “many young, new faces” with which the party can represent society as a whole.

One could interpret this as a consistent step than what is appropriate. She is controversial, she lacks support for re -election at the party congress in June. Maybe she simply realized that it is over in terms of career. In addition, someone should take responsibility for a historically bad performance of the party in the federal election. Not only did the SPD lost the Chancellery, it also came to only 16.4 percent of the vote.

If it would not be the fact that the man who bears the same amount of this responsibility cheerfully expanded his power in the meantime: Co-party leader Lars Klingbeil, right after the choice of election, transitioned the parliamentary group chair and then the post of Federal Minister of Finance and Vice Chancellor in the new government. He is the new strong man of the SPD. Election defeat, was there?

Esken would also like to move into the cabinet, but could no longer prevail. Every few days there have been voices from the party in the past few weeks, which expressed criticism of Esken, or expressed support for Klingbeil, and did not explicitly mention. It was enjoyed by many of the debt of many, even if it never became clear why at all. Again and again it is about their supposedly unfortunate television appearances, their bad performance in their own constituency. But that seems to be in no relation to the extent of the criticism.

Esken wanted to fight himself, it was not least in an interview that she star gave. She was certainly not “free of mistakes,” she said there, and that also deals with it. “But often the violent criticism of me is unfair and constructed.” Women in politics would be viewed more critically and judged differently.

Even if she does not say a bad word about her co-chair in her farewell interview in the ARD, Lars Klingbeil plays a rather inglorious role in the spectacle of the past few weeks. He simply had the discussions in the party, some of which were also held publicly, for a very long time.

After the woman’s withdrawal, the SPD, who contributed to the fact that the party found unity again after the departure of the former chairman Andrea Nahles, is now going to court. The very first uncomfortable question is obvious: Which young woman wants to become a member of a party or support them, who repeatedly revises with her leadership women?

Esken is looking for dignity in the debacle: it is the one who now ensures that the party renews itself. The SPD circles already spread to publish the cabinet list, on which ESKE was not taken into account. Even now, to withdraw from the party chairmanship, this is her narrative: that she in particular wanted to give young women in the SPD the chance to “determine the future for our party.” This is the way she developed for herself “over the past few days and weeks”.

Who will follow her? The most promising candidate is likely to be Bärbel Bas. The former Bundestag president, just freshly elected Federal Minister of Labor, already made it clear that she was available. Your age? 57 – six years younger than Saskia Esken. So much for the generation change.