Franziska Giffey and Raed Saleh remain SPD state chairmen – but got unexpectedly bad results. Giffey received 58.9 percent of the vote – compared to 89 percent in November 2020. An unexpectedly weak number.
Franziska Giffey and Raed Saleh remain SPD state chairmen – but got unexpectedly bad results. Even Giffey’s predecessor, Klaus Wowereit, called for unity.
Berlin’s governing mayor Franziska Giffey (44) and faction leader Raed Saleh (45) remain chairmen of the Berlin SPD. The delegates at the state party conference on Sunday in Berlin-Neukölln re-elected them – albeit with significantly less approval than in November 2020, when they ran for the first time. Giffey received 58.9 percent of the vote – compared to 89 percent. Saleh also fell well short of his result of 69 percent with 57.4 percent. This is an unexpectedly weak value, especially for Giffey.
The duo replaced the then Governing Mayor Michael Müller at the head of the state association and led the party in the election campaign for the House of Representatives last year. The SPD was the strongest faction there, but only just ahead of the Greens. Giffey has headed the new red-green-red Senate since December.
Giffey and Saleh campaigned in front of the 268 delegates at the Hotel Estrel before the vote for their re-election in a double pack. Giffey said they both make an “ideal match”. Saleh assured: “Franziska and I, we have really given everything together in the past two years for Berlin’s social democracy.”
In her speech, the Governing Mayor praised the red-green-red coalition agreement, which clearly shows a social-democratic signature, referred to Berlin’s efforts to significantly increase the number of naturalizations, warned against start-ups that disregard workers’ rights and called for not to leave the constituencies in Berlin-Mitte to the Greens.
Above all, Saleh emphasized the socio-political efforts of the SPD in Berlin, warned of the threat of poverty in view of rising energy prices and the high inflation rate and promised that the voting age for elections to the state parliament would be lowered to 16 during this legislative period. There was applause from the delegates – but in the vote without opposing candidates there was restrained approval.
Before the election, Berlin’s former governing mayor Klaus Wowereit (68) called on the party to unite. “The SPD was always strong when they appeared together,” he said. If that was an appeal to stand behind the state chairmen, it was of no use.
“We are grateful for the support with which the party congress has again tasked us with the state presidency today,” Giffey was quoted as saying in a joint statement. “This shows us that the path that we started two years ago with a content and programmatic realignment of the SPD Berlin is supported by the members.” Saleh put it similarly: “I am also very grateful for the support that we an order for the future.”
He is particularly proud of the fact that the state board is more diverse, more female and younger than ever before. All in all, there are actually a number of changes in the executive state board: the SPD district chairman in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Kian Niroomand, the Pankow district councilor for urban development, Rona Tietje, and the member of the Bundestag and state secretary in the building ministry, Cansel Kiziltepe, were newly elected as deputy state chairmen , all of which received significantly more approval than the two state chairmen.
The delegates confirmed Ina Czyborra as state vice and Michael Biel as state treasurer. Julian Zado, Senator for Building Andreas Geisel and Senator for the Interior Iris Spranger resigned as deputy state chairmen.
