History of The Social Democratic Party of Germany - The Merkel-led Grand Coalition

The Merkel-led Grand Coalition

In the current German government, the SPD is now the junior partner in a grand coalition with the CDU/CSU under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel, with Frank-Walter Steinmeier as Vice-Chancellor.

However, Müntefering resigned as party chairman and was succeeded as chairman by Matthias Platzeck, minister-president of Brandenburg. Müntefering's decision came after the party's steering committee chose a woman from the left wing of the party, Andrea Nahles, as secretary general over Müntefering's choice, his long-time aide Kajo Wasserhövel. However, after Müntefering said her election indicated that he had lost the confidence of the party and he would therefore resign, Nahles turned down the post of secretary general to prevent the party splitting. Hubertus Heil was elected in her place.

On April 10, 2006 Matthias Platzeck announced his resignation of the Chair because he suffered a major hearing loss in March 2006. The interim Chairman from April 10 to May 14 was Kurt Beck. He won the full leadership on a small party convention on May 14. He resigned on September 7, 2008; on September 8, 2008 the party's executive committee nominated Franz Müntefering to be elected as chairman at an extraordinary party conference on October 18, 2008. In the meantime Frank-Walter Steinmeier serves as provisional chairman.

During the Schröder administration, Schröder and Lafontaine disliked each other, because Lafontaine quit as Finance Minister in 1999. After his resignation there was a huge distrust of Lafontaine in the SPD which lasts to today. However due to the rise of Angela Merkel and Guido Westerwelle on the national stage of politics in 2005 and a belief in the German public of the failed social policies of the SPD on labour issues (Hartz IV), the SPD lost heavily in opinion polls and lost a couple of state-wide elections. So there was the urgency to form new coalitions with the Left who have a similar political agenda than the weakened Green Party or the other conservative parties in Germany. However the leader of the Left was the lost child of the SPD - Oskar Lafontaine - who had fallen out with the SPD. There is a common oath in the SPD not to form coalitions with the Left, because of Lafontaine.

So, a state leader of the SPD - Andrea Ypsilanti - choose to form a minority coalition with the Left in Hesse after a lost state election in January 2008. This decision was heavily criticized by national leaders of the SPD. But the leader at that time - Kurt Beck - was for the coalition in Hesse and supported Ypsilanti. Beck who is a popular minister-president has lost a lot reputation on a national level because of the support. At an emergency session of leaders of the SPD, Kurt Beck resigned the chairmanship of the SPD, because after 8 months there was no coalition and Beck was criticized for supporting Ypsilanti. In November 2008, the Landtag in Hesse was dissolved and there will be new elections in January 2009.

But several other state leaders of SPD have started flirting with the "Left" and today there is a huge struggle in the SPD on how to treat the Left in order to gain Bundesrat seats to be once again a true national party. In November 2008, the SPD was at 25% in national opinion polls, one of the lowest values in recent memory. Furthermore today in the SPD there is rift between two internal factions of the party. One side of the party - the right-wing Seeheimer Kreis refuses to do coalitions with the Left Party. Members of the right-wing include Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Gerhard Schröder. The other side of the party - the political left of the SPD - embraces coalitions with the radical Left. Members include Andrea Ypsilanti and Andrea Nahles.

Also a reason for today's struggle with the Left is that the SPD is currently itself in a national coalition with the conservative coalition. So the SPD is in a dual struggle. At first the struggle for not endangering the national coalition with Merkel and therefore endangering a national political crisis that maybe result in further losses for the SPD. And secondly the struggle for not forgetting the roots where the SPD came from, because the SPD itself is left party, whose political positions have been eaten by the Left party. So the SPD has to position itself again.