Parties: Jusos in Berlin clearly against coalition with CDU

With a large majority, the Jusos in Berlin opposed the planned coalition with the CDU.

Parties: Jusos in Berlin clearly against coalition with CDU

With a large majority, the Jusos in Berlin opposed the planned coalition with the CDU. A motion by the state board entitled "NoGroKo - Berlin only works with the left" received the very large majority of the approximately 80 delegates at a Jusos conference on Saturday. The SPD youth organization vehemently and with great applause called for the continuation of the coalition with the Greens and Left and fundamentally rejected cooperation with the CDU.

In the repeat election on February 12 in the capital, the CDU was ahead with 28.2 percent, the SPD and Greens both received 18.4 percent, and the left came to 12.2 percent. The SPD and CDU started coalition negotiations in Berlin on Thursday.

At the Juso conference, many delegates criticized the fact that the SPD state leader and governing mayor Franziska Giffey and her co-chair Raed Saleh had not appeared to face the debate. The Juso application said about the CDU country chief Kai Wegner, who is to become governing mayor according to the current plan: "Kai is the wrong first name for the Red City Hall." He is totally unfit for the post. "Anyone who deliberately fishes through racist narratives on the far right during the election campaign" cannot be elected mayor by the Social Democrats.

campaign started

The CDU had polarized in the election campaign because, after the New Year's Eve riots, they asked the first names of suspects with German nationality to find out whether they had a migration background. Wegner said at the time: "We have to know the names so that we can give precise answers and reach the young people."

With a new website, the Jusos started the announced campaign against the planned coalition. State chairwoman Sinem Taşan-Funke said: "We will not rest until we have prevented this grand coalition."

The Vice-Chairman of the SPD and State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Building, Cansel Kiziltepe, however, defended the negotiations with the CDU. She emphasized that the Greens had not made any decisive commitments in terms of content. Statements about the 29-euro ticket, housing and free day care centers have remained vague. But she also said: "Yes, the CDU is conservative. It's not always easy. The campaign was racist, and that also affected me personally." However, there was a promise that there would be personal statements with corrections.

Giffey warns of "spectator bench"

All Juso speakers decidedly and sometimes emotionally rejected the CDU as a coalition partner and received enthusiastic applause for it.

Should the Berlin SPD members decide in favor of the Jusos and reject a coalition with the CDU, the still incumbent Governing Mayor Giffey sees her party in the opposition. "Because I'm convinced that if the SPD doesn't go this route, I don't think there will be a red-green-red coalition," she said on RBB Inforadio. If the coalition with the CDU does not come about, the way is mapped out for the SPD to sit "on the spectator bench" and watch how black and green shape things. That's not her claim to politics, said Giffey.

She conceded that persuasion and communication work had to be done in her own ranks for an alliance with the CDU. "I hear these skeptical voices," she said. There are intensive discussions in the district associations. However, these are inconsistent and there is by no means only rejection.

The Jusos have around 5,000 members in Berlin, and SPD members under the age of 35 are automatically included. The almost 19,000 SPD members in Berlin can vote until April 21 on whether they accept or reject the coalition agreement that has been negotiated with the CDU.

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