Bundestag election: Klingbeil: Scholz doesn’t have time for the election campaign yet

The SPD does not want to be disturbed by the decisions of its competitors when choosing its candidate for chancellor. Party leader Lars Klingbeil confirms in a video interview with the German Press Agency that Chancellor Olaf Scholz should only be nominated at the party conference in June 2025 and gives one reason for this: “Because Olaf Scholz has no time for the election campaign at the moment.”

Scholz is the head of government of a country “that is currently in a phase of change, where there is still a lot of uncertainty and where an incredible amount is happening.” And then it is in the Chancellor’s interest to say: “For now, I am not in the role of the election campaigner, but rather I am in the role of the person who is currently leading this country.”

Exactly one year until the election

Today it is exactly one year until the federal election, which is scheduled for September 28, 2025. Even before the state elections in Brandenburg, the CDU and CSU decided earlier and more quietly than expected to go into the election campaign with CDU leader Friedrich Merz at the helm. According to an agreement among the party leadership, the AfD’s candidate for chancellor will be chairwoman Alice Weidel.

And the Greens are expected to make a decision on their candidacy for chancellor as part of the party’s realignment by the party conference in November. Economics Minister Robert Habeck is considered unrivaled following Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s resignation.

“There is no wobbling”

There is a secret discussion in the SPD about whether Defense Minister Boris Pistorius as candidate for chancellor could increase the chances in the federal election. The SPD has been far behind the Union for months with values ​​of around 15 percent. Pistorius is the most popular politician in Germany in all surveys.

Klingbeil nevertheless emphasizes that the party leadership is united behind Scholz’s candidacy for chancellor. “There is no doubt, there is no wobbling. We want to go into this federal election with Olaf Scholz,” he says.

Polarization between Scholz and Merz “bad for the edges”

Klingbeil admits that the election campaign will be tougher this time than in 2021. But he reiterates that Merz is the SPD’s preferred opponent. “Because I believe that with Friedrich Merz we are getting a polarization in the democratic center of this country, which is helpful.” This can be seen, for example, in pension and economic policy. “I think the aim is that we are conducting a fair election campaign. But whatever disputes take place in the middle are bad for the edges. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all.”