Overview

• SPD leader and Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil admitted to the party's record-low 16.4% election result and called for an 'honest and ruthless' internal debate during state congresses in North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein.
• Grassroots SPD members criticized Klingbeil's leadership, accusing him of sidelining Co-Chair Saskia Esken and demanding a clearer ideological direction, either centrist or leftward.
• Die Linke, at its Chemnitz congress, adopted campaigns targeting high rents, food prices, and tax justice, alongside reforms like term limits for Bundestag MPs and mandatory donations to party social funds.
• Die Linke leaders Ines Schwerdtner and Jan van Aken sharply criticized the CDU-SPD coalition government under Chancellor Merz, accusing it of serving the wealthy and ignoring inflation and living costs.
• Both parties face mounting pressure to adapt: the SPD from internal divisions over its centrist stance, and Die Linke from its ambition to solidify its role as a mass socialist opposition party.