The North Rhine-Westphalian SPD wants to get out of its crisis with a demonstrative solidarity. “We are only strong together,” said interim chairman Marc Herter after a strategy meeting of around 500 top officials in Münster.
All the “power centers” of the SPD at federal, state, European and local level must now pull together. Personal vanities and injuries from the past should no longer play a role, said Herter, who is the mayor of the city of Hamm.
After the resignation of state party leader Thomas Kutschaty in March, applications for the successor should be announced by the summer break. “We’re going into the summer break with clarified staff,” said Herter. Concrete candidacies or the future structure of the leadership of the largest SPD state association had not yet played a role at the convention in Münster. On August 26, the North Rhine-Westphalia SPD wants to elect their new leadership at a party conference.
Behind closed doors, members of the Bundestag, the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament and the EU parliament as well as the state executive committee, chairmen of the SPD sub-districts and SPD district parliamentary groups and municipal officials debated the future course of the SPD.
The 54-year-old Kuchaty resigned at the end of March – around ten months after the defeat of the SPD in the North Rhine-Westphalia state elections. In the May 2022 election, the SPD fell to an all-time low of 26.7 percent. According to surveys, the once powerful state party is currently even below this value.
