First woman leader elected for Germany’s SDP party
GERMANY’S Social Democrats (SPD) elected Andrea Nahles as their first-ever woman leader yesterday, hoping she can reinvigorate the country’s oldest party after it suffered heavy losses in September’s election.
About 66% of SPD delegates at a congress voted for Nahles, a plain-speaking former labour minister and Catholic mother of one who has close links to trade unions and once said she wanted to be either a housewife or the German chancellor.
The 154-year-old SPD, junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition, had to find a new leader to replace Martin Schulz, who resigned after his campaign for September’s election earned the SPD its worst showing since 1933.
Nahles had been widely expected to win but yesterday’s result is the second-worst for an SPD party leader in the postwar era, with some members unhappy about the renewed Merkel tie-up that Nahles pushed for likely having voted for her opponent – Simone Lange, the 41-year-old mayor of the northern city of Flensburg.
The SPD remains in the doldrums, with a poll for newspaper Bild am Sonntag showing its support at 18%, lagging Merkel’s conservatives on 33% and not far ahead of the far-right Alternative for Germany on 13%.
Nahles, 47, must now preside over the party’s efforts to revamp itself – coming up with new policies and pushing fresh faces into the foreground – to bring the SPD back from the brink and make it an electoral force to be reckoned with again.
“You can renew a party while it’s in government. I want to prove that from tomorrow,” Nahles said in an impassioned speech before the vote.