Mission carried out: The SPD leadership duo helped the SPD to reunite.
(Photo: imago images / Christian Spicker)
SPD leader Norbert Walter-Borjans has achieved something that very few politicians do: a self-determined departure. With his withdrawal from the party chairmanship, he has cleared the way for a new top who is supposed to defend the independence of the SPD under Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
With the claim that the party must be more than a mere appendage of the SPD government apparatus, Esken and Walter-Borjans took up the position of chairman two years ago. The great achievement of the leadership duo is undoubtedly to have led the SPD to a unity that was no longer thought possible.
This unity contributed significantly to the election of the fourth Social Democratic Chancellor. That is more than one might have expected when Esken and Walter-Borjans took office.
For Olaf Scholz, his defeat in the fight for party leadership even turned out to be a stroke of luck. Esken and Walter-Borjans immobilized the left wing of the party and thus kept Scholz’s back free so that the unpopular but inevitable candidate for Chancellor in the party could shine in peace.
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At the same time, however, the two party leaders were relegated to the role of vicarious agents for Scholz in his plan to conquer power. The two were Scholz’s chairmen, but never his superiors.
Nikolaus is now GroKo-Aus – but different than expected
Esken and Walter-Borjans had come up with the promise to prevent Scholz as party leader and thus to put an end to the GroKo as far as possible. Now Nikolaus is actually GroKo-Aus, but the SPD wakes up in bed with Christian Lindner and with Scholz as Chancellor. A double punch line.
The fact that the grandiose announcements were never followed by great deeds is one reason why Esken and Walter-Borjans are still not accepted as chairmen in parts of the SPD. Esken is therefore likely to give up their office and switch to the Ministry of Education.
Their likely successors, Secretary General Lars Klingbeil and Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig, would, as party leaders, be halfway on par with Scholz. With the rhetorically strong Kevin Kühnert as possible general secretary, that would be a party leadership that the CDU and the Greens could still envy the SPD.
However, the change in staff harbors new dangers. Scholz’s candidacy for chancellor unofficially turned back the 2019 membership decision. With Schwesig and Klingbeil as party leaders, the party would also be officially turned from the left back to the social democratic right.
At the moment, the victory frenzy welds the SPD further together. But the left wing of the party will certainly not simply accept its disempowerment in the long term.
More: SPD chairmanship – everything boils down to Lars Klingbeil.