After the resignation of party leader Thomas Kutschaty, the North Rhine-Westphalian SPD is to be temporarily led by deputy state chairman Marc Herter. He had been appointed interim party leader until the next state party conference, which was postponed to August, said Herter, who is also mayor of Hamm (48). The board of the largest NRW state association decided on Friday evening in its extraordinary meeting in Dortmund.
But it's not yet the time that "someone is already throwing their hat in the ring" for a candidacy for state party chairmanship. "We have bigger problems at the moment." The party conference in Münster, originally planned for May 6, at which a new SPD leader was to be elected, has been postponed to August. Herter left it open whether he would then run for party chairmanship after the summer holidays.
It is much more important to tackle a strategic reorientation with many forces together. The SPD needs a realignment that we want to develop and formulate together. It takes a lot of strength to do that. At a press conference after the board meeting late on Friday, Herter initially said: "I have been appointed for three months." Shortly thereafter, he corrected and made it clear that he would be interim state party leader until the party congress in August.
Kuchaty resigned on Thursday; a good ten months after the heavy defeat of the SPD in the NRW state elections. Internally, there had been increased criticism of the course of the 54-year-old, who is also the leader of the parliamentary group in Düsseldorf and deputy SPD federal chairman. His resignation was triggered by a controversial personnel decision to fill the post of SPD general secretary in North Rhine-Westphalia, with which he failed in the presidium.
After the crisis meeting, Secretary General Nadja Lüders, who was still in office, also emphasized that now was not the right time for personnel speculation. According to the board of directors, May 6 should not expire, but be used for a "convention" - a meeting of different "power centers" of the SPD, such as the mayor, representatives of the state parliamentary group or the SPD-NRW state group in the Bundestag.
Herter said it's about a "forward" analysis, about the question "what are we doing better, what are we doing differently, what are we doing new." The guiding star should be to find answers to questions that people "talk about at the dinner table".
Kuschaty was chairman of the NRW state association for around two years after he prevailed in a power struggle against the then state head Sebastian Hartmann. It was still open on Friday whether Kuchaty would remain the leader of the parliamentary group. Herter emphasized that it was there alone that decisions were made on how to proceed in the parliamentary group. When asked whether the parliamentary group and party chair should be in the same hand, he said that you couldn't answer that "dogmatically". Sometimes it is "rather a question of timing and personal ambitions".
