Pressure is building inside the Social Democrats to change course after the heavy losses of votes in the state parliament elections of Baden-Wuerttemberg (March 8) and Rhineland-Palatinate (March 22). Philipp Tuermer, chairman of the SPD young generation (Jusos), called for changes of leadership personnel to begin with, implying that Lars Klingbeil (Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor) and Baerbel Bas resign from their posts as party leaders.
As far as programmatic changes are concerned, Tuermer left this question unanswered. It is, however, a fact that the 35,000 party members who belong to the young generation of age 35 and younger, are as heavily influenced as the rest of the party by greenie views—but nonetheless the green ideology was one of the main reasons for substantial voter migrations from the SPD to the right-wing AfD.
