German minister of finance and the vice-chancellor has lost the battle for the presidency of the Kalebet SPD. The election is bad news for Merkel.

Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken is with 53 percent of the votes is elected to the presidency of the German socialist SPD. It shall communicate to the party Saturday.

The two should share the presidency between them.

the Choice makes the future more uncertain for the German ruling coalition.

Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken is critical of the current governing coalition with chancellor Angela Merkel's christian democrat CDU.

They have not directly called for the SPD to leave the coalition, but they have required a renegotiation of the inter-governmental cooperation.

- We have said all the time, that this is not only about whether we will withdraw immediately or be sitting the time out, says Norbert Walter-Borjans on Saturday night to the tv station Phoenix.

He adds that he will look at what policy proposals that can be implemented together with Merkel's party, and which can not.

Norbert Walter-Borjans is the former minister of finance of north Rhine-Westphalia, while Saskia Esken is known for his activism against among other things the extreme right.

The current minister of finance and vice chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and his mate, græsrodspolitikeren Klara Geywitz, got 45 percent support from partifællerne.

Scholz, and Geywitz was otherwise in advance figured to be the favorites and had the support of the established part of the SPD. It wrote to the news agency Reuters before the results were announced Saturday at 18 o'clock.

the Defeat for the two to be seen as yet another sign of the discontent that exists in the SPD in coalition with the CDU.

Many SPD members believe that the cooperation with the CDU is the fault of the party's crisis. The polls are bad, and the relatively low vælgeropbakning was the reason, that there must be a new management.

Andrea Nahles, left the party after a poor result in the elections to the EU Parliament in may.

In some public opinion polls the SPD, which has traditionally figured as a natural governing party train after the CDU and The Greens.

The right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) struggling with SPD to be the third largest party.

426.630 party members had the opportunity to vote on one of the two teams with each two candidates who will share the presidency.

Formandsvalget comes ahead of the SPD's party congress, to be held 6. to the 8. december in Berlin. Here formandsvalget formally confirmed. It is expected that the presidency in this context will put more words on what can be expected from them.

/ritzau/dpa