SPD board nominates Scholz as candidate for chancellor

After a heated and contentious debate, the SPD board unanimously nominated Olaf Scholz as candidate for chancellor. The dpa news agency learned the news from participants at a meeting of the 33-member management board in Berlin.

The decision will be confirmed at the party congress on January 11. Over the past two weeks, the Social Democrats have openly debated whether Scholz should be replaced by the more popular Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who fell ill after the failure of the “traffic light” government.

It was only last Thursday that Pistorius decided not to run for office, clearing the way for Scholz's nomination. Within the SPD, however, the deadlock over the K issue still had an impact.

Sharp criticism of the party's leadership emerged at the weekend at the federal congress of the SPD's youth association Young Socialists. Juso boss Philipp Türmer accused party leaders Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil of leadership failures and spoke of a “shit show”.

Esken: 'We don't really give a good picture'

Esken later admitted: “No, we did not make a very good impression when we nominated our candidate for prime minister.” Klingber defended the party leadership's opposition. “What I ask of the leadership is that you listen to the party, debate and think in different situations,” he told Deutschlandfunk.

Social Democratic Party leader Saskia Esken.Image: trapezoid

Meanwhile, Klingber called on the party to now look ahead to the February 23 election. “It is now the collective responsibility of everyone to turn on the switch and make sure that we start the campaign,” Esken told German television channel Scholz. “We will now join him in this battle.”

96.2% is the benchmark

After the nomination, Scholz's candidacy for chancellor still needs to be confirmed at the party meeting on January 11. This is considered a formality. However, Scholz must be measured against the results in May 2021 – four months before the federal election. At that time, Scholz was confirmed with 96.2% of the vote.

At that time, as today, support for the Social Democrats ranged from 14% to 16%. It was not until this summer that the smile of federal chancellor candidate Armin Laschet in the flooded area brought a turning point: the Social Democrats became the strongest force with 25.7% of the support.

SPD wants duel between Scholz and Merz

The SPD hopes the challengers will make mistakes this time too. The party wants to focus its campaign on a showdown between Scholz and CDU/CSU chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz. The Social Democrats accuse him of being politically backward and want to score points above all by leveraging Scholz's government experience and certainty on issues.

However, in terms of popularity, the chancellor still performs worse than Mertz in the survey. In the current DZP political barometer, he is ranked seventh, while Pistorius is undisputedly fifth. However, the data was collected before the SPD's decision on the K question last Thursday.

At the same time, the SPD hopes that Scholz will appear different from the government head who is keen on balance during the election.

Rhineland-Palatinate state chancellor Alexander Schweitzer (SPD) told the ARD program Berlin Report that the party now needs a combative and combative Scholz. “The time for moderate measures in the difficult traffic light coalition is now over. Now we need the strong Olaf Scholz, who has also shown where he wants to lead the country.” Schweitzer emphasized.

For the first time there are four candidates for prime minister

Scholz is the third candidate for prime minister nominated by the party for the February 23 election, after Merz and Green Party deputy prime minister Robert Habeck. On December 7, the board of directors of the right-wing populist AfD party hopes to nominate party leader Alice Weidel as candidate for prime minister. For the first time, there are four candidates for prime minister in a federal election. (DAB/Sudan Development Authority/Department of Political Affairs)

In France, “unusual” overnight high temperatures were recorded on Monday night for November. For example, in Pau, in the Pyrenees-Atlantiques, temperatures were measured at over 26 degrees.