Candidacy for chancellor: SPD leadership wants to end debate about Scholz

The SPD leadership wants to quickly end the debate about Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s candidacy for chancellor. Party leader Lars Klingbeil announced that the further timetable for the federal election campaign would be determined in the next few days: “It’s about clarity on the matter, it’s about a path that we are now taking until the federal party conference,” he said on ARD and reiterated: “We want to go into this election campaign with Olaf Scholz.” Everyone who has responsibility at the top would have said that clearly.

The debate about Scholz’s candidacy for chancellor had previously gained momentum. After a number of local politicians, two members of the Bundestag openly advocated for Defense Minister Boris Pistorius to run for office for the first time. The SPD leadership has repeatedly emphasized its support for Scholz, but after the decision to call for a new election, it initially refrained from nominating him – and thus made the candidate debate possible.

Klingbeil admitted that there were rumblings about Scholz in the party. But he doesn’t believe that this discussion could have been killed with a board decision in the last few days. What is crucial is that those responsible have expressed themselves clearly, he emphasized in the ARD program “Caren Miosga”. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out the strategy. The SPD is planning an “election victory conference” in Berlin on November 30th, at which the candidate for chancellor will make his first major appearance.

Members of the Bundestag are demanding speed

Meanwhile, several SPD members of the Bundestag are also pushing for a quick decision from the party leadership for Scholz’s candidacy. “Olaf Scholz is our Chancellor and has very successfully led Germany through unprecedented crises,” said Bernd Westphal, economic policy spokesman for the Bundestag faction, to “Stern”. “I advise my party to be united and to focus clearly on the election campaign with our candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz.”

Düsseldorf member of the Bundestag Andreas Rimkus told “Stern”: “We have a chancellor. And that’s why we also have a candidate for chancellor. We should now officially make that clear.” Holger Mann, chairman of the SPD regional group in Saxony, said: “I’m going into the election campaign with Olaf Scholz. We can’t let ourselves be fooled. There are less than 100 days until the election.” The left-wing party member Axel Schäfer, a member of parliament from Bochum, called on the SPD leadership to pick up the pace.

Support also from Pistorius

Defense Minister Pistorius also backed Scholz again on Sunday. “We have a truly outstanding chancellor who was at the helm in a difficult three-way constellation during one of the most difficult times in the republic,” said the Defense Minister in the ARD program “Report from Berlin”. Scholz has decided that he wants to continue, and the party will decide on this at the party conference on January 11th at the latest. He “still firmly assumes that Olaf Scholz will be nominated.”

The aim now is to achieve a good result in the new elections on February 23rd. “That’s what it’s all about, and we certainly won’t achieve that if we spend the next few weeks debating the candidate for chancellor,” said Pistorius. He called for unity, clarity of goals, clear language “and then into the election campaign.”