Germany’s social democrats name new top leader ahead of national election campaign

BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) named a new top leader on Tuesday who will play a key role in the political campaign ahead of the country’s 2025 general election.

Matthias Miersch, the current deputy head of the SPD’s parliamentary faction, will take over as the party’s general secretary, giving him the difficult task of renewing the party’s popularity while the chancellor and his coalition are experiencing record-low approval ratings.

“I realize that this is a really big challenge, and I want to take it on,” Miersch said.

With the federal election less than a year away, Miersch assumes the post at a critical moment for the struggling SPD. The party is now polling at 16 percent nationally, nearly 10 points below its result in the last federal election in 2021. In the June European election the SPD — which traces its roots back to Imperial Germany in the late nineteenth century — recorded its worst result in a national election in well over a century.

As general secretary, Miersch will serve as one of the chief defenders of the party and its policies, and help craft the SPD’s election message. Given Germany’s weak economy, that platform will likely rest on economic growth.

“We are firmly convinced that the upcoming Bundestag election will focus on economic and industrial policy,” Lars Klingbeil, one of the SPD’s national leaders, said on Tuesday.

Miersch, 55, has been an SPD parliamentarian for nearly two decades and was key in establishing the coalition’s gas price cap to shield consumers and companies from high energy costs after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. He also pushed for subsidies related to a controversial law to replace gas boilers with heat pumps.

Miersch takes on the role at a time when many question whether Scholz’s three-party ruling coalition — which has scuffled over everything from migration to spending — will survive until next September’s federal election.

“[Miersch] is facing a huge challenge, because the situation in the federal government is super tense and it’s not at all clear if the coalition will hold,” said Tim Klüssendorf, an SPD parliamentarian. “He has to organize an election campaign against the background of that uncertainty, without even being able to rely on an election date.”

The SPD’s previous general secretary, Kevin Kühnert, resigned on Monday citing health problems.