After Bas resignation, Germany's SPD to re-elect its entire leadership around New Year
Klingbeil announces a party congress in December or January. The dual leadership will stay – the vice chancellor left open whether he will run again.
Archive image · Photo: Raimond Spekking / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Following Bärbel Bas's resignation, Germany's Social Democrats will re-elect their entire federal leadership, not just the vacant seat at the top. Party leader and Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil announced the move after a meeting of the SPD presidium at the party's Willy-Brandt-Haus headquarters in Berlin. The vote is to take place at a federal party congress around the turn of the year, in December or January according to Klingbeil. He gave no exact date. Klingbeil is expected to lead the party alone until then.
The dual leadership, which the SPD introduced in 2019, will be kept. Klingbeil said he had introduced it himself as general secretary and still considered it right. He left open whether he will stand again, saying he would do everything to give the SPD the best leadership and that everything else would be discussed within the party. No possible candidates were named.
Bas resigned with immediate effect on Monday morning as co-leader and labour minister. She cited a personal tragedy and public attacks from the ranks of the coalition partner. Klingbeil called those attacks "indecent" and called for "a culture of respect for one another". Chancellor Friedrich Merz rejected the notion that attacks by his conservatives contributed to the resignation. Alexander Schweitzer is set to become the new labour minister.