SPD leader sees election defeat as a call for renewal

The Saxon SPD is calling for a new beginning after the defeat in the federal elections. "The SPD is called upon to renew itself. We have to change," said party leader Kathrin Michel in Dresden. "These are precisely the questions that we have to discuss not only in Saxony, but nationwide. What will the path be? It has to be a different one. A "business as usual" - as we have experienced for many years now - will not get us anywhere."

If we don't succeed now, the SPD will shrink even further, Michel emphasized. She expressed the fear that East German issues would be neglected in the new parliamentary group with fewer SPD MPs from the East. Two thirds of the previous SPD MPs would no longer be there. The East must not be left behind. That is a major concern. Even in the last legislature, it was difficult to place East German issues - even in the SPD parliamentary group.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz's party only received 16.4 percent of the vote in Sunday's election, its worst result to date. In Saxony, the Social Democrats achieved 8.5 percent and came in a distant fifth behind the AfD (37.3 percent) and CDU (19.7 percent) as well as the Left (11.3 percent) and the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance (9.0 percent).