A senior official of the German youth organization Juso, Philipp Türmer, has strongly criticized the party’s leadership following the SPD’s poor performance in the recent federal election.
According to an interview with the German news magazine “Spiegel”, Türmer deemed the entire election campaign a “single blunder” and stated that the nomination of Olaf Scholz as the party’s chancellor candidate was a “mistake in the process and in the end result”. He attributed the election defeat to the party’s leaders, Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil, saying they bore the responsibility for the loss.
Türmer sharply criticized the announcement that Klingbeil would become the new faction leader, calling it a “fatal impression” that the architect of the failure was seeking to take control of the faction. He described the move as incorrect, especially on the day of a historic election defeat.
Türmer described the election result of 16.4 percent as “not just a warning shot, but a direct hit” and urged the SPD to reorganize programmatically on a broad scale, stating that this should take priority and be followed by a personnel reshuffle if necessary.