Yves Cruchten (LSAP), if confirmed in office next year, will share the presidency with a female colleague   Library photo: Maison Moderne

Yves Cruchten (LSAP), if confirmed in office next year, will share the presidency with a female colleague   Library photo: Maison Moderne

Luxembourg’s social democrats, the LSAP, on Monday voted to share the party presidency between two people and allow for joint top billing in the next elections.

The party convened an extraordinary general meeting on 15 November, with members supporting a move to share the LSAP presidency between two candidates. The duo must be gender balanced.

Yves Cruchten currently serves as the president of the LSAP. The new co-presidency will be elected at the next regular annual general meeting of the party in the spring of 2022.

One of the candidates will be allowed to be in government. This was previously not allowed. For example, Franz Fayot had to relinquish his top seat in the party when he joined the government in 2019 as minister of the economy.

The LSAP follows the Christian democrat CSV in doubling up on mandates. The CSV in September had to its statutes to formalise an overhaul of the party executive.

Like the CSV, the LSAP also opted to include the possibility of having more than one person as the top candidate for prime minister in the 2023 elections. Unlike the joint presidency, this decision is optional. However, should the party pick two candidates, one of them must be a woman.

The Greens have long shared the party presidency between two candidates--one woman and one man--with the offices currently held by Djuna Bernard and Meris Sehovic.