Politics - Parties in NRW are shrinking: the Greens' rise has come to a halt
TheCDU, SPD, Greens and FDP in North Rhine-Westphalia have one thing in common this year: the major parties have all lost members. The SPD, which is steeped in tradition, has been hit the hardest, with its party membership now down to less than 90,000. But years of growth among the Greens have also come to a halt for the time being.
SPD: The Social Democrats have suffered the most painful losses in their former home state. From the end of 2022 to October 2023, the number of members fell by around 2,500 to 88,500. The last time the SPD had more than 100,000 members in NRW was in 2019. According to the party, more than 1,800 supporters joined the party in 2023. However, this was offset by 3,500 departures, the vast majority of which were due to deaths, as has been the case for years.
General Secretary Frederick Cordes is nevertheless confident. After all, the NRW SPD recorded more new members than politically motivated resignations over the course of the year. Even if this could not offset the total number of deaths, this is "a positive signal in times of great social uncertainty and challenges". For 2024, the new leadership duo Achim Post and Sarah Philipp, together with Cordes, have set themselves a modernization course for the SPD with many new dialogue formats.
CDU: The CDU remains the only party with more than 100,000 members in Germany's most populous federal state. According to party figures, it had more than 110,000 members at the end of 2023 - but that was around 2780 fewer than a year earlier. By the end of October, there were 2,249 new members compared to 4,265 deceased or retiring members. Almost three quarters of CDU members are male and only 27% are women.
The CDU is expecting almost 3,000 new members by the end of 2023, says CDU Secretary General Paul Ziemiak. That would be almost 50 percent more new members than in the 2022 election year. In October, the NRW CDU launched a membership recruitment campaign and is strengthening member loyalty through new event formats. The party is also relying on modern, digital formats to involve members in the substantive work at state level and to strengthen the exchange of ideas among members.
Greens: For years, the Green Party's membership curve always pointed upwards, but this is over for the time being. The number of members of the Greens, who have been a coalition partner of the CDU in NRW since summer 2022, fell by 413 to 25,882 between the end of 2022 and mid-November 2023. 1545 supporters joined the ecological party, while 1809 turned their backs on it. According to the party, the decline is also due to people moving in and out of the party. The fact that the number of members remains stable is "not a matter of course in view of the challenging times in which we Greens are governing at state and federal level", says Political Director Raoul Roßbach.
FDP: Loss among the Liberals too: The FDP currently has around 18,500 members in NRW, which is around 1,500 fewer than at the end of 2022. In NRW, the FDP is in opposition, while in the federal government it is part of the often-divisive traffic light coalition. "Even in politically difficult times, many people are committed to the Free Democrats - that's good news," summarizes Secretary General Moritz Körner.
Left: The Left Party in NRW is already very small - and it continues to shrink. At the beginning of December, the party still had 7213 members - almost 570 fewer than a year earlier. Following the resignation of Sahra Wagenknecht and her supporters, state spokesperson Kathrin Vogler is hoping for new momentum. Since Wagenknecht's break with the Left Party at the end of October, the Left Party has gained 257 new members, while 225 have left. "I see this as a cautious trend reversal, after previously we regularly had twice as many people leaving as joining," says Vogler. The Left Party now also wants to focus particularly on gaining new members.
AfD: The right-wing populist AfD is the only party on the upswing. Since party leader Martin Vincentz took office at the beginning of 2022, the number of members has risen from 4,700 to around 7,000. According to a spokesperson, there were more than 1,000 new members in 2023 alone. More and more citizens see the AfD as the "only alternative to the ruinous policies of the other parties", says party leader Vincentz. This can be seen not only in the poll figures, but also in the number of people joining the party. However, the AfD is nowhere near the five-digit membership figures of the major parties.
Number of members SPD NRW
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- Despite the overall decline in party memberships in North Rhine-Westphalia, Achim Post and Sarah Philipp, the new leadership duo of the SPD in NRW, have set a modernization course for the party with many new dialogue formats.
- In North Rhine-Westphalia, Achim Post serves as the General Secretary of the SPD, and he expressed confidence in the party's future despite the decrease in membership due to deaths.
- The FDP, led by Secretary General Moritz Körner in North Rhine-Westphalia, has also experienced a reduction in members, with around 1,500 fewer members at the end of 2023.
- In Düsseldorf, the city capital of North Rhine-Westphalia, Achim Post and the SPD are attempting to attract new members through various events and modern, digital formats to strengthen member engagement.
- Despite the challenging political climate and the decline in membership, Raoul Roßbach, the Political Director of the Greens in North Rhine-Westphalia, remains hopeful that the ecological party can maintain its stable membership, citing positive membership trends over the past year.
Source: www.stern.de
