Now it's official: The Bavarian SPD, led by party and parliamentary group leader Florian von Brunn, is going into the state elections in a year's time. A state party conference on Saturday in Munich chose the 53-year-old as the top candidate with a large majority - he received 93 percent of the votes cast. The state board had proposed him as the top candidate.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz had previously campaigned for von Brunn at the party congress - and accused the CSU-led Bavarian state government of years of failure to secure the energy supply in the Free State. In particular, the expansion of wind energy had been "delayed for decades," he said.

Von Brunn accused the CSU of serious omissions in areas such as energy, education, social and housing policy. Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) is afraid to take responsibility in central areas - that's why the SPD must do this, said von Brunn. "We don't just talk - like Söder." Co-Chairwoman Ronja Endres had already clearly formulated the SPD's election goal at the beginning of the party conference: "We want to govern."

In several state election polls, however, the Social Democrats had recently not exceeded a maximum of ten percent, trailing far behind the CSU and also behind the Greens. According to these polls, the incumbent coalition of CSU and Free Voters can still count on a clear majority in the state parliament.