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TEHRAN, Jun 3 - Germany’s troubled Social Democrats (SPD) on Monday discussed appointing three caretaker leaders after Andrea Nahles quit, with members appalled by plummeting popularity agitating for the party to leave Chancellor Angela Merkel’s scrappy coalition.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - Nahles, the most vocal backer of the SPD’s reluctant decision to form a third so-called “grand coalition” with Merkel’s conservatives, formally quit on Monday after a disastrous showing at last weekend’s European elections.
Voters have punished the SPD for its decision to step in as a coalition partner of last resort with ever more disastrous poll showings, culminating last weekend in the party being toppled in its stronghold city of Bremen after 70 years.
SPD sources said party chiefs proposed three caretakers to jointly lead the party while it takes time to settle on a new leader: Manuela Schwesig and Malu Dreyer, the premiers of the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Rhineland-Palatinate respectively, and Thorsten Schaefer-Guembel, who leads the SPD in Hesse.
“I believe a coalition walk-out has to come,” said Simone Lange, mayor of the northern town of Flensburg, who challenged Nahles for the party leadership at the contest last year.
“The question is when is the right time to do it.”
The ruling coalition is due to run until 2021 but a midterm review in the autumn could be an opportunity for the SPD to pull the plug on the alliance.
The options facing the SPD are unappealing.
Source: Reuters
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