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The previous SPD leadership in Berlin: Franziska Giffey and Raed Saleh - including Kian Niroomand (2nd from left at the back) now wants to become state chairman
Photo: Christophe Gateau / dpa
The SPD in the capital is facing a decision about a possible change in leadership. Jana Bertels, state chairman of the SPD Women, and Kian Niroomand, district chairman in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, have announced their intention to jointly take over the chairmanship of the state association in the future.
Nicola Böcker-Giannini and Martin Hike also pursue this goal. The Neukölln district mayor and the ex-state secretary had already expressed their ambitions a few days ago.
“The SPD Berlin needs a new start”
Now Bertels and Niroomand are also entering the race. »We know exactly the state of our party. We are among those who have organized and kept party work going in the last few years, which have been marked by the pandemic, crises and constant election campaigns," said the 35-year-old and the 33-year-old. "And that's exactly why we know: The SPD Berlin needs a new start."
This could lead to a candidacy against the current state leader Raed Saleh at the next state party conference on May 25th. He leads the Berlin SPD with Franziska Giffey. However, Giffey announced at the beginning of the year that he would not run again for the state chairmanship. The Giffey/Saleh duo has been at the head of the capital's SPD since November 2020.
The Berlin comrades say that Saleh wants to compete in a duo with Luise Lehmann. She is relatively unknown in the party; It is assumed that Saleh wants to score points with the young woman, especially with the Jusos.
The announcement by Bertels and Niroomand comes one day after the SPD in the capital suffered significant losses in the partial repeat of the federal election in the affected electoral districts. The Berlin comrades see a main cause in the work of the traffic light coalition in the federal government, in particular by SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz (read more about this here). In view of the losses, Giffey called for the SPD to have a higher profile in the traffic light coalition.
Bertels and Niroomand are ambitious. They want to make the SPD Berlin “a left-wing big city party of the 21st century.” They also want to unite the party - the decision, which was largely driven by Giffey, to go into a coalition with the CDU as a junior partner after the repeat of the 2021 House of Representatives election last year is still having an impact on the comrades, after previously having a red-red coalition. led the green alliance.
Bertels and Niroomand express barely concealed criticism of the current party leadership. "It's time to move away from the culture of unconditional retention of power and the lack of taking responsibility of the last few years," they said. They did not seek government office, but wanted to "get the SPD back on track with hard, honest work."
In the repeat election to the House of Representatives, the SPD suffered noticeable losses, while the CDU made major gains. Things went similarly in the partial repeat of the federal election in a total of 455 Berlin electoral districts.
Both repetitions were necessary because there were massive glitches in both the House of Representatives election and the federal election on the original election date in September 2021.
cte/ulz