SOCIAL DEMOCRATS IN CHAOS: Kurt Beck Resigns as SPD Head [Germany]

SPIEGEL Online ^ | 09/07/2008 | cgh / wire

[wolf78]

One day after Germany's Social Democrats leaked the news that Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier would be the party's candidate for chancellor, SPD leader Kurt Beck resigned in frustration. Party bigwig Franz Müntefering may take over.

For much of the last year, Germany's Social Democratic Party has been stumbling from crisis to crisis with plummeting membership and abysmal popularity. On Sunday, party leader Kurt Beck finally took the last move available to him: He stepped down.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced Beck's decision from a SPD leadership retreat in the small town of Werder, located just outside of Berlin. Steinmeier said that he would propose former party chair Franz Müntefering as Beck's successor, but that Steinmeier himself would take over the reins until the party could gather to choose its new leader.

Beck's surprise decision comes just one day after news leaked out that Steinmeier had been chosen by the party as its candidate for chancellor in general elections scheduled for next September.

[wolf78]

Kurt Beck resigned as leader of Germany's Social Democrats on Sunday.

[cartan]

Good riddance. This fat pinko was exceptionally stupid, even for a social democrat, the party of two-digit IQs. OTOH, it would have been nice if the SPD had kept an idiot leader until the next election, at least.

Perhaps he can go to Afghanistan now, chatting with those “moderate Talibans” he kept maundering about…

[pierrem15]

Will the SPD now join hands with the neo-Communist party (the Links partei)?

The Germans have spent the past 20 years worrying abou a resurgent NSDAP, while they in fact are the only European country that a) has seen the resurgence of a fundamentally anti-democratic communist party; and, b) has had a good chunk of its political elite put in the pay of Russia.

But of course, the main threat to Germany is the "warmongering" USA.

[cartan]

I think you are right: Germans are totally blind to the danger of the communist Linkspartei. Yes, I believe the SPD will have no compuncture about forming a government together with the commies. I predicted this already long before we saw the first SPD/PDS-coalition at state level. People called me crazy, and SPD politicians always fiercely denied that they would ever form a government together with the PDS, even at state level. However, as soon as a majority was mathematically possible, they broke their promises. They will do the same at the federal level, and already after the next election, I’d bet.

There is absolutely no sense in this country anymore that there is anything bad about socialism. As long as there is one person in Germany that earns €1 more than social welfare recipients get, people will whine about this horrible social injustice. The only party that does not sing along with this neo-communist choir is the FDP. And it gets little more than 10% of the votes. Good night, Germany.

[Red6]

It's sad and scary alike, but the conservative movement in Germany is near dead and distorted.

Even those who call themselves conservative are simply a social and economic liberal with a “bit” more national and pro-defense flavor, for the most part.

Frankly, I have no idea how things will get better. I know how they got there starting in the mid 1800s, but I don't know how they will ever dig themselves out.