Thuringia: SPD top candidate Georg Maier | MDR.DE

The left wing of the SPD and the Jusos are anything but amused by the developments in the party. When top candidate Maier was quoted as saying in his office as Interior Minister that deporting migrants to Afghanistan was justifiable, Melissa Butt, the state leader of the Jusos, was particularly furious.

“People are not waiting for the Social Democrats to increasingly use the populism of the AfD,” said Butt. Seeheimer’s leader Böhler responded: “An SPD that tries to overtake the Left Party on the left is making itself redundant.” A controversy that shows how fierce the power struggle is being fought behind Maier’s back, but with his knowledge.

Diana Lehmann had already distanced herself from Maier more clearly than Butt on another occasion. Lehmann is considered to be an extremely left-wing comrade and is Vice President of the State Parliament until the end of the election period. After that, her involvement in state politics will probably end. And the 41-year-old also blames the leading candidate for this end.

Had war happened? At the state party conference in Erfurt in mid-April, the delegates also voted on the state list for the state elections. Those who are at the top of the list have a good chance of getting a place in the new state parliament. Those who are at the bottom of the list will probably come away empty-handed, given the expected result.

Lehmann only came in tenth place, which is probably not enough. The accusation is that Maier drew up the state list and placed his critics far down the list, thus sidelining them. An accusation that the 57-year-old of course vehemently denies.

When asked about Maier and his work, Lehmann dictated a sentence that sounds like a bruised ego, but still sticks in the mind: “There are people in the party who are positioning themselves to succeed Maier.” According to Lehmann, he is only tolerated as party chairman.

No matter how big or small the camp of Maier’s internal opponents really is, the trench warfare can become a problem for the leading candidate. The Jusos and the group around Lehmann are, if motivated and convinced, committed campaigners.

If they are alienated, the street campaign in particular is at risk of losing its impact. A leading Social Democrat had already described in private before the state party conference exactly how this would happen. When it became clear that Finance Minister Heike Taubert would also only end up at the bottom of the list, he blurted out: “Then no one in East Thuringia (Editor’s note: Taubert is running in Greiz) will put up an SPD poster anymore.”