At the federal level, parties always face the same task after state elections.

If you have done well, you can try to give the result broader meaning, beyond the country.

If it was not a good election day, it is important to present the result as purely country-specific.

In this respect, the SPD federal chairman Lars Klingbeil had a clear task on Monday when he stepped in front of the microphone around noon with the social democratic top candidate in the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein, Thomas Losse-Müller.

The collapse of the SPD was so dramatic and the victory of the CDU so overwhelming that Klingbeil had to do everything to counteract the impression that this was more than just an event in Schleswig-Holstein.

Helen Bubrowski

Political correspondent in Berlin.

  • Follow I follow

Eckhart Lohse

Head of the parliamentary editorial office in Berlin.

  • Follow I follow

Johannes Leithauser

Political correspondent in Berlin.

  • Follow I follow

First he denied that it was about the success of the alliance of the CDU, Greens and FDP governing in Kiel.

That was not a Jamaica victory, but that of the governing Prime Minister Daniel Günther from the CDU.

Not all partners in the coalition in Kiel would have won either.

On the one hand, that was true, since the FDP lost heavily.

The Greens, on the other hand, who mean much more competition for the Social Democrats, increased significantly.

Klingbeil tried to buffer Sunday's defeat with other means.

He began the press conference with congratulations to the social democratic member of the Bundestag Yasmin Fahimi, who had just been elected the new DGB chairman with more than 93 percent.

He then said the SPD had won six of the previous nine elections, including the federal election and the one in Saarland, in which the Social Democrats had recently won an absolute majority.

The people's parties are still there, said the SPD leader, which is a "good sign".

Klingbeil: The situation in NRW is different from that in Schleswig-Holstein

Klingbeil reported on the discussion in the party presidium about the war in Ukraine.

There is "full support" for Chancellor Olaf Scholz's course.

The fact that French President Emmanuel Macron was visiting Scholz on Monday, May 9th, to coincide with Europe Day, is a good sign.

With the war against Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin "revitalized" the West, said Klingbeil.

All topics larger than a state election.

The main distraction from Schleswig-Holstein, however, should be the detailed discussion of the next state election, the one next weekend in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Election loser Losse-Müller had to accept that Klingbeil, standing next to him, said that it had been clear for a long time that Daniel Günther would stay Prime Minister in Kiel.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, on the other hand, according to the surveys, there will be a head-to-head race between the applicants from the CDU and SPD.

The Greens are already looking forward to the next election Sunday.

Because the election campaign in North Rhine-Westphalia ended in a duel in which they are not involved, the starting position is more difficult than in Schleswig-Holstein.

Ricarda Lang, the federal chairwoman, was still optimistic on Monday that the Greens in Düsseldorf could move back to the government bench: After five years of black and yellow, there is a “strong change of mood”, North Rhine-Westphalia should be “the first climate-neutral industrial region in Europe”. will.