From BZ/dpa
In Berlin, another SPD district association has spoken out against a coalition with the CDU.
At an SPD district delegates’ meeting in Tempelhof-Schoeneberg on Saturday, a majority voted in favor of a corresponding motion by the Jusos.
71 delegates voted in favor, with 30 votes against and 5 abstentions, as the district association announced.
The SPD branches in the Neukölln and Steglitz-Zehlendorf districts had previously opposed an alliance with the CDU, and the Jusos are also against it. The SPD has a total of twelve district associations in Berlin.
After the repeat election on February 12 and the exploratory talks with other parties, the SPD leadership around the chairwoman and governing mayor Franziska Giffey decided to enter into coalition negotiations with the election winner, the CDU.
The decision was made even though the previous coalition of SPD, Greens and Left Party had a majority in the House of Representatives.
The ongoing coalition negotiations are expected to be completed by the end of the month. After that, an SPD member vote on the coalition agreement is planned for April.
The SPD district chairman in Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Lars Rauchfuss, called the vote against an alliance with the CDU a clear signal when asked by the dpa.
The debate was very intense and lasted around three hours. Nevertheless, the SPD district association does not want to anticipate the members’ vote with its decision and will accept the result of this basic survey.
According to Rauchfuss, the district association also decided to call for a special party conference of the SPD in Berlin. Because regardless of the coalition question, it is high time to work through the poor election result of the SPD on February 12 and to draw content-related, strategic and personal conclusions.
“So far we’ve been dealing with an absence of discussion here,” complained Rauchfuss.