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SOCIAL DEMOCRATS

SPD hopes to revamp itself as voting for new leaders begins

Members of Germany's social-democratic party (SPD) begin voting in the second round of a leadership election on Tuesday in a showdown which could shape the future of Angela Merkel's coalition government.

Published: 19 November 2019 11:46 CET
SPD hopes to revamp itself as voting for new leaders begins
The candidate duos (l-r) for the SPD leadership, Olaf Scholz, Minister of Finance, Klara Geywitz, Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken take part in a TV duel organised by the editorial network Deut

Junior coalition partners to Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), the SPD elect their new leaders against a backdrop of disastrous poll ratings and internal division over their role in government.

READ ALSO: Why can't Germany's Social Democrats pull themselves together?

The 425,630 party members have from Tuesday until November 29th to cast their vote, as they elect the first male-female leadership duo in the party's 129-year history.

In a leadership election dominated by one major issue, SPD members must choose between two pairs with differing views on the coalition government.

In place since 2017, it is the third so-called “grand coalition” since 2005, and remains unpopular among voters and SPD members alike.

Incumbent finance minister Olaf Scholz and his partner Klara Geywitz have argued for a continuation of the coalition until the next elections in 2021, though Scholz has also said it should be the last of its kind.

READ ALSO: Olaf Scholz, Germany's problematic new finance chef 

A former mayor of Hamburg and currently Merkel's vice-chancellor, Scholz is considered a potential candidate to run for Chancellor himself if he and Geywitz win.

Challengers Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken, meanwhile, have earned support from the party's left and youth wings with a more critical stance on the coalition.

In a televised debate on Monday, Esken said that she would be prepared to let the government fall if the CDU and their Bavarian sister party refused to renegotiate the coalition agreement.

The poll marks the climax of a five-month process, which began when former party leader Andrea Nahles stepped down in June.

Nahles' resignation came after the once proud SPD picked up just 15.3 percent of the vote in May's EU elections, confirming their steady slide in poll ratings in recent years.

READ ALSO: Threat of German government collapse as Merkel's junior coalition partner resigns

Latest polls put the SPD around five points behind the Green Party, which has jumped to 20 percent under its own male-female leadership duo this year.

Results of the vote will be published on November 30th, with the new leaders to be formally confirmed at the party congress on December 6-8th.

During the congress, members will also have the chance to vote on the future of the coalition.

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POLITICS

Social Democrat leader backs Sweden’s harsh new immigration policies

The leader of Sweden's Social Democrat opposition has backed the harsh new policies on crime and immigration included in the new government's programme, and even signalled openness to the much-criticised begging ban.

Published: 26 October 2022 17:05 CEST
Social Democrat leader backs Sweden's harsh new immigration policies

In an interview with the Expressen newspaper, Magdalena Andersson said her party was absolutely agreed on the need for a stricter immigration policy for Sweden, going so far as to take credit for the Social Democrats for the illiberal shift. 

“There is absolutely no question that need a strict set of migration laws,” she told the Expressen newspaper, rejecting the claims of Sweden Democrat Jimmie Åkesson that the government’s new program represented a “paradigm shift in migration policy”. 

“The paradigm shift happened in 2015, and it was us who carried it out,” she said. “The big rearrangement of migration policy was carried out by us Social Democrats after the refugee crisis of 2015, with a thoroughgoing tightening up of the policy.” 

READ ALSO:

She said that her party would wait and see what “concrete proposals” the new government ended up making, but she said the Social Democrats were not in principle against even the new government’s most criticised proposal: to slash the number of UN quota refugees from around 5,000 to 900. 

“That’s something we are going to look at,” she said. “It’s been at different levels at different points of time in Sweden.” 

Rather than criticise the new government for being too extreme on migration, Andersson even attacked it for not being willing to go far enough. 

The Social Democrats’ plan to tighten up labour market migration by bringing back the system of labour market testing, she said, was stricter than the plan to increase the salary threshold proposed by Ulf Kristersson’s new government.  

When it comes to the new government’s plans to bring in much tougher punishments for a string of crimes, Andersson criticised the new government for not moving fast enough. 

“What I think is important here is that there are a completed proposals for new laws already on the table which need to be put into effect,” she said. 

She also said she was not opposed to plans for a national ban on begging. 

“We Social Democrats believe that people should have the possibility to get educated, and work so they can support themselves,” she said. “That’s something we’ve believed in all along. You shouldn’t need to stand there holding your cap in your hand.” 

“It’s already possible to bring in a ban in certain municipalities today,” she continued. “So the question is really whether this should be regulated at a national or a local level. We did not decide at out national congress that it should be regulated at a national level, but when the inquiry publishes its conclusions, we will assess the advantages and disadvantages and decide on whether we will keep our position or change.” 

Where she was critical of the new government was in its failure to discuss how it would increase the budgets for municipalities and regional governments, who she said face being forced to drive through savage cuts in real spending to schools, healthcare and elderly care if they were not prioritised in the coming budget. 

“But that’s such a tiny part of this slottsavtal (“Mansion agreement”), and the government’s policy programme suggests they’ve missed something that should really be in focus for the government,” she said, warning that citizens should be braced for dramatic fall in the quality of welfare in the coming years. 

She said her party would also campaign against the new government’s plans to scrap Sweden’s goal of spending one percent of GDP on aid, and also against the new government’s plans to make it harder to build wind energy projects. 

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