For a minute, it almost looked like the membership of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) might grow a spine. Ahead of the SPD’s conference last Sunday to decide whether to enter into talks with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), several eastern state parties as well as the Berlin SPD declared their opposition to the negotiations, while particularly vocal resistance emerged from the party’s youth wing, the Jusos.

And indeed, the conference vote ended up being remarkably close, with only 56 percent of the assembled delegates endorsing the negotiations for a new “GroKo” — the German media’s awkward abbreviation for “große Koalition,” a grand coalition between the country’s two main parties, the CDU and SPD. But fifty-six percent is still fifty-six percent. Formal talks to assemble a grand coalition — the third in sixteen years — will soon be underway.

While Sunday’s vote clearly points to widespread dissatisfaction among the SPD base, party politics in the weeks leading up to the conference suggest that the SPD apparatus remains in control of the situation. The leaderships of most major states voiced their support for the negotiations ahead of the meeting, and the three state parties that objected represented just thirty-six delegates. The SPD leadership stood largely united in the face of this small revolt, leaving no opening for a left-wing renewal figure, let alone movement, to rescue the party from its ongoing decline.