Withdrawal from Saskia Esken, trouble about Lars Klingbeil: unrest in the SPD

The moderator stops briefly, looks amazed, almost embarrassed – just as if she hadn’t expected this clear statement. Not at this point, not so straight ahead.

“I give up my party chairman and make room for the renewal,” says Saskia Esken on Sunday evening in the “Report from Berlin” in the ARD. Short silence in the TV studio-and a player.

The months of guesswork and whispering in the SPD, whether the internally controversial party chairman wants to remain in office, whether the continuing criticism can also remain in doubt takes an abrupt end. Esken draws the final line under an increasingly malicious and sharp discussion about her person. Not excluded that the debate is going on elsewhere.

Most recently, it had become lonely for Esken, which was elected as the first SPD chairman in 2019 from the grassroots on a double tip, and whose public effect was repeatedly commented critically by many comrades. First behind the scenes, then public.

For months, names about the corridors in political Berlin were whispered, who could follow ESKEN: Freestrifest in performance, more popular in the party, more successful in the constituency. This was followed by dirt, such as a punctured vacation trip Eskens during the coalition negotiations. Finally, her own state chairman in Baden-Württemberg cites that Esken was not one of the top candidates for the SPD cabinet.

The public criticism has accompanied her since she announced her candidacy for the party chairmanship, Esken himself says, and may have to do with the fact that she “as a left and somewhat fearless, fear -free woman appears her mouth when it is unfair in the country”. The 63-year-old believes that some may not fit some. Your decision to withdraw is “matured”.

It doesn’t worry too much about it, says Esken. “I am concerned with the fact that the SPD can now make it clear after this electional slump, we have many young, new faces,” says Esken, who wants to keep its Bundestag mandate.

Esken, the enabled: This narrative should get stuck, but is counteracted by her preventive and only rare sewn. For Lars Klingbeil, who recently described the debate about Esken as “shameful” and criticized a “style” that “I don’t like in the SPD at all”, a tangible problem can also grow from it.

Because he didn’t get it parked. And shortly before Esken’s withdrawal, her SPD-Co boss had to put up with hard criticism.

At the state party days in Duisburg (North Rhine-Westphalia) and Husum (Schleswig-Holstein) at the weekend, young delegates in particular accused him of “punishment” from Esken, while Klingbeil himself is accumulating and expanding his power. The “low point of the party” should not be the climax of the career of individuals, mumps Luana Marsau, the deputy Juso chairman in Schleswig-Holstein. Klingbeil was also accused of not having a programmatic vision for the party.

The fact that this impression was created is also due to Klingbeil’s acting in the weeks after the election defeat. He has tailored the SPD, is now Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister in the Black-Red Cabinet-while other comrades have been empty with ambitions, including. Klingbeil has demonstrated power-political skill, but for some people there was too little humility to show the debate about Saskia, like those around the SPD chancellor candidacy last November.

He also made mistakes, Klingbeil admitted in Duisburg. One has to talk about that. How serious, how reliable, how relentlessly – not least, the processing of the election result will have to be shown by a commission. As well as this analysis is promoted by the party leadership. The fact that a poisoned debate about their own co-chair was held in the vicinity of the election should not have belonged to the gem.

Last but not least, Klingbeil will have to give the delegates an obvious statement at the end of June at the end of June as to why-as expected-he would like to run as SPD chairman. Only to emphasize that a strong voice for the SPD is needed at the cabinet table should not all convince. Especially since Esken, with its withdrawal, is ultimately ahead with its withdrawal – the renewal that Klingbeil has proclaimed. Qua Office is responsible for the historical defeat in the Bundestag election.

In the SPD, it is expected that a successor to Esken could soon register for her interest in the party chair: Bärbel Bas, the new Minister of Labor and Social Affairs. The former Bundestag president recently emphasized that she was not excluding the party chair – but no place was currently free. You can understand that as a hint with the roof bat. The Duisburg native, like Esken, belongs to the left party wing.

Although the backing for Esken was recently eroded, the role of the outgoing SPD-CO chairman should not be underestimated. She acted as a hinge to the left wing, Klingbeil belongs to the conservative-pragmatic current in the SPD. She is considered a hard negotiator, as one who has the party base in mind. She already proposed a 500-billion euro program for investments in 2019 with her SPD-Co-boss Norbert-Walter Borjans.

Esken’s withdrawal shows that the SPD is still sorting after the election defeat; have to sort and have been deported important debates during black and red government formation. It should therefore hardly be calmer in the next few weeks.