By Gunnar Schupelius
The black-red coalition is in place, but there are serious doubts about the reliability of the SPD. That endangers the success of the new government, says Gunnar Schupelius.
The time has come: On Thursday, Berlin’s CDU leader Kai Wegner will be elected governing mayor. Then the new black-red coalition will start its work.
Perhaps one should rather say: Wegner should be elected. Nobody knows how many votes he gets from the SPD.
Observers expect that Wegner will not get the necessary majority in the first or maybe even in the second ballot and then only make it at the last minute.
Because the SPD is split into two camps, more deeply than ever before. The left camp insists on a coalition with the Greens and the Left. The liberal camp wants an alliance with the Union.
Three large district associations have spoken out against the coalition with the CDU and almost half of the members. And this despite the fact that the coalition agreement with the CDU bears a clearly social-democratic signature.
Wegner and his team made very far-reaching concessions there in order to win the SPD over to an alliance. In the last election, the Social Democrats received a third fewer votes (18.4 percent) than the CDU (28.2 percent) and are now on an equal footing and even dominant in terms of content.
Actually, the whole party should be satisfied with this negotiation success of their chairmen Giffey and Saleh. But it’s not just about the thing, but also about feelings and ideology.
Almost half of the members feel at home on the left-green side, the officials swung all the way to the left last summer and decided at the party conference in June to expropriate housing companies.
Franziska Giffey, who had resisted precisely this, was confirmed as party leader with only 59 percent of the votes. It was a bad game: the party left gave her the cold shoulder, but didn’t want to saw her off entirely, but wanted to continue using her to benefit from her popularity.
When Giffey then kicked out the Greens and the Left Party after the re-election, it was seen as disobedience. The SPD-Left foamed with anger and has wanted to take revenge ever since. When and where and how remains open.
That is what is dangerous. Because Giffey is weakened, the member vote did not bring her the support she hoped for, the result was far too close for that. She would have had every reason to resign after this result. She did not do this in order not to endanger the coalition she had negotiated with the CDU.
The contract is signed. The CDU stands behind it like one man. The SPD must also show this unity. It owes that to the voters, who have the right to a functioning government.
But if the SPD doesn’t play along properly, if they don’t switch off their numerous jammers, if they want to use intrigues to let the coalition fail, then they should say so right away. Then she should step down from the stage and disappear into the opposition. That would be the only option then.
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