Power struggle in the Berlin SPD: parliamentary group leader Saleh throws in the towel

A bang in the Berlin SPD. On Tuesday afternoon, parliamentary group leader Raed Saleh announced his resignation. “I will not run again for the parliamentary group chairmanship in the upcoming elections,” said Saleh, who has led the parliamentary group since 2011.

Recently, the pressure on the 49-year-old had become greater and greater. On Monday evening, the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district association passed a resolution that called on Saleh to withdraw, without naming him. After the election, it is “necessary to take responsibility and enable a new beginning in terms of personnel”.

A similar resolution came from the district association in Marzahn-Hellersdorf, where the AfD became the strongest party on Sunday. “We are convinced,” it says, “that a change at the top of the parliamentary group is unavoidable after this clear electoral defeat.”

The former governing mayor Michael Müller also recently criticized Saleh in an unusually clear manner. He acted as if he had nothing to do with the poor election results, said Müller at a Tagesspiegel event. Under Saleh's parliamentary group leadership, the SPD fell from 28 percent in 2011 to 12 percent of the vote most recently.

According to information from the taz, Raed Saleh had counted the votes in the new faction until the end, and he was hoping for their support. As late as Tuesday afternoon, Saleh's camp was saying that he could count on 12 votes from the faction, which had shrunk to 22 MPs. Apparently the bill turned out differently in the afternoon. He sent out his press release announcing his resignation at 3:11 p.m.

Has the power struggle in the Berlin SPD been decided in favor of the state chairman and top candidate Steffen Krach?

After the Berlin SPD's election debacle on Sunday, Krach survived the parliamentary group executive committee meeting on Monday afternoon unscathed. The feared personnel debate did not materialize. After two and a half hours, Krach appeared in front of the camera and spoke about wanting to rebuild the SPD. He told the RBB evening show: “We will have a good personnel position, we will certainly also have discussions.”

At the meeting of the state executive committee there were also voices that suggested Krach should reach for the parliamentary group chairmanship himself. Since then, the various wings in the party sorted out their ranks. It also became known that Saleh could give up the parliamentary group chairmanship and move to the Senate. After the resignation on Tuesday, that should have been resolved.

Saleh's surprising resignation could now give Krach more freedom in the talks about forming a government in Berlin. While Saleh had declared a “pragmatic policy of the center” to be voted out on Monday morning, other voices spoke up in the state executive board.

“With this election result we got a very clear message that the broad spectrum of the population was no longer in favor of the SPD,” said Franziska Giffey, the current Senator for Economic Affairs, who will no longer be a member of the next parliamentary group, to the RBB. “We have to take this very, very seriously and draw conclusions from it.”

There is unlikely to be a quick decision for a left-wing alliance with the Left Party and the Greens, for which Saleh had indirectly spoken out, after Tuesday's bang. A move into opposition, as more and more voices in the party are advocating, cannot be ruled out. Saleh, in turn, is considered a friend of stable majorities and an opponent of tolerating a minority government, for example from the Left Party and the Greens.

However, Raed Saleh wouldn't be Raed Saleh if he didn't try to drag Steffen Krach into the abyss with him. “The party would continue on the path to insignificance,” he said in his statement, “if those responsible do not dare to step into the second row in the event of such a disaster.” Because it was not he, Saleh, who led the election campaign as the top candidate. Steffen Krach is welcome to feel addressed here.

There is no self-criticism in the statement. It was Saleh who, together with Giffey, led the SPD into the alliance with the CDU after the repeat election, which was voted out on Sunday.

Whether Steffen Krach now wants to take over the parliamentary group chairmanship on Thursday remained unclear at the time of going to press.