Merkel’s fate in SPD hands as members vote on power pact

The SPD’s credibility and electoral fortunes have been badly bruised by a series of U-turns, which on Tuesday saw election loser Martin Schulz glumly resign as leader after less than a year in the post.

Schulz, the third candidate in a row defeated by Merkel, had declared minutes after the election debacle that he would take the party into opposition to rebuild its combative spirit.

However, he later reversed that decision when Merkel’s initial attempts to form a separate alliance with two smaller parties failed.

In arduous negotiations, Schulz’s team managed to wrest some policy pledges, and the foreign, finance and other crucial cabinet posts, from Merkel’s conservatives.

However, his subsequent grab for the post of foreign minister, after he had earlier ruled out personally serving in a Merkel cabinet, was seen as one broken promise too many and sparked a party outcry.

– ‘Heal wounds’ –

Schulz said he hoped that “time will heal the wounds” as he stepped down, and announced that Nahles would soon take over.

As the party tries to recover from the damaging turmoil, Kuehnert is pushing on with a passionate campaign to torpedo the GroKo deal.

His Jusos (Young Socialists) organisation has controversially urged voters to join the party with the sole purpose of preventing another Merkel power pact, arguing that any common ground the two big parties once had has been used up.

The ballot-box pain of Germany’s two mainstream parties was in large part a result of the rise of the anti-Islam AfD.

Railing against a mass influx of refugees that peaked in 2015 under the previous GroKo, the populists won almost 13 percent of the vote with their Germany-first rhetoric and angry demand that “Merkel must go”.

If the SPD referendum fails, both major parties fear the likely result will be fresh elections and a further boost for the AfD.