Last week the delegates at the SPD Party Convention in Dresden elected Sigmar Gabriel (aka Siggi Pop) as the new chairman. Gabriel replaces Franz Müntefering, a loyal Schröder deputy, who was
blamed for the 11-point collapse in support in the general election to
just 23 per cent. In fact, the SPD has lost 50% of its voters since Schröder won the chancellorship in 1998. Is Gabriel the man to bring them back?
I listened to Gabriel's speech on YouTube and also caught his appearance on "Bei Beckmann" and am not convinced that he will be able to turn things around for the Social Democrats. Gabriel seems committed to staying the course as a Partei der Mitte – a territory which Angela Merkel already controls. In his speech he seemed to blame the catastrophic loss in September on the SPD's inability to get its message across – as if it were simply a problem of inadequate PR. On this point Wolfgang Lieb of the NachDenkSeiten blog has this to say:
Was ist es denn anderes als Selbstbetrug, wenn man den Kompetenzverlust
der SPD auf nahezu allen Feldern, damit abtut, dass die Bürgerinnen und
Bürger den Eindruck bekommen hätten: „Wir wissen nicht, wofür ihr derzeit steht“?
Nach elf Jahren Regierungs(mit)verantwortung, haben die Leute doch wohl
ausreichend Erfahrung gesammelt, um zu wissen, wofür die SPD steht. Man
kann jedenfalls auf Dauer auch durch die beste politische Rhetorik
nicht über das einzig Konkrete hinwegtäuschen, das bei den Menschen
ankommt, nämlich über das politische Handeln. (What could be more delusional than to blame the loss of support for the SPD across the board on the idea that the citizens would think: "We don't know what you stand for at this time"? After 11 years of governing the people have seen more than enough to know what the SPD stands for. Even the best political rhetoric cannot obscure the fact that people value actions over words.)
Gabriel is seen as a compromise leader who can balance the concerns of the old Schröderianer and the younger, more left-leaning, base led by Andrea Nahles. But can he appease the left wing, or even stop the hemorrhaging of members to the LEFT Party? Apart from a vague promise to reintroduce a wealth tax, Gabriel has
refused to entertain concrete left-wing demands and insists the party
will continue its centrist path in opposition. In the eyes of some critics on the left, such as blogger Jens Berger, Sigmar Gabriel is nothing more than an opportunist:
Sigmar Gabriel verkörpert die hohe Kunst des Opportunismus in der
Politik wie kaum ein Anderer. Als sein guter Freund Gerhard Schröder
zusammen mit dem Briten Tony Blair 1999 in den Schröder-Blair-Papieren
die Sozialdemokratie durch eine neoliberale Ausrichtung ad absurdum
führte, gehörte Gabriel zu den bedingungslosen Unterstützern dieser
Politik. Gabriels Begeisterung für die "neue Mitte" kam nicht aus
innerer Überzeugung – in den frühen Jahren seiner politischen Karriere
war Gabriel schließlich ein überzeugter Parteilinker. (Sigmar Gabriel embodies the high art of political opportunism like no one else. When his good friend Gerhard Schröder together with Tony Blair put Social Democracy on a fateful neo-liberal path in 1999, Gabriel was one of the biggest supporters of this development. Gabriel's enthusiasm for "the New Middle" did not arise out of inner conviction: in the early days of his political career Gabriel was a committed member of the SPD's left flank.)
Sigmar Gabriel is a good speaker and has many attractive qualities, but it is hard to see how he can lead the SPD out of its current identity crisis.
