New election: Pistorius abstains – Scholz should do it again

Following Defense Minister Boris Pistorius’ resignation, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is to be nominated by the SPD executive board as candidate for chancellor in the new Bundestag elections next Monday. “We will now very quickly create clarity in the committees, on Monday in the party executive committee: We want to go into the next election dispute with Olaf Scholz,” said party chairman Lars Klingbeil after digital deliberations by the party executive committee in Berlin.

After a controversial public debate in the SPD, Pistorius had previously cleared the way for the Chancellor to run again. He informed the party and parliamentary group leadership that he was not available to run for office. “This is my sovereign, my personal and very own decision.”

Pistorius: “Olaf Scholz is a strong chancellor”

At the same time, Pistorius spoke out in favor of Scholz as a candidate for chancellor. “Olaf Scholz is a strong chancellor and he is the right candidate for chancellor.” He led a difficult coalition of three parties through perhaps the biggest crisis in recent decades. “Olaf Scholz stands for reason and prudence.” This is particularly important in times of crisis like these.

Scholz’s nomination is scheduled to take place at the regular meeting of the party executive committee on Monday. The board members connected digitally in the evening. At the same time, the SPD prime ministers met with Scholz in the Lower Saxony state representation, then the party leadership joined them.

Pistorius called on his party to end the candidate debate now. It caused increasing uncertainty in the SPD and irritation among voters. That’s a shame for the SPD, said Pistorius. “I did not initiate this debate, I did not want it and I did not bring myself into the conversation for anything. We now have a shared responsibility to end this debate. Because there is a lot at stake.”

The debate began with Mützenich and the “rumbling” in the party

After the break of the traffic light coalition, an increasingly loud debate developed in the SPD about whether it would not be better to enter the race with Pistorius. In view of his significantly higher popularity ratings and assumed better electoral chances, more and more SPD politicians at local, state and federal levels had openly spoken out in favor of him.

The SPD leadership had supported Scholz, but after the decision to call a new election on February 23rd, they initially refrained from nominating him as a candidate for chancellor. The public debate began with a statement by SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich that there were “rumblings” in the party on the K issue.

Pistorius just wanted to rule out becoming pope

Pistorius made no move to stop them for days. On the contrary: “In politics you should never rule out anything, no matter what it is about,” said the SPD politician on Monday at an event organized by the Bayern media group in Passau. “The only thing I can definitely rule out is that I will become pope,” he added with a wink. However, Pistorius then also said about the candidacy for chancellor: “It’s not in my life plans and, to be honest, it doesn’t have to be.”

Scholz formulated his claim early on

Scholz himself had already declared his claim in July, when the break in the traffic light coalition was still far away: “As chancellor, I will run to become chancellor again,” he said at the time. In the past few days he had not repeated this so clearly – obviously in order not to give the impression that he wanted to choose himself.

After the nomination by the party executive board with its 34 members, the party congress will vote on the candidate for chancellor on January 11th. Normally this is a formality. The candidate’s first official presentation is scheduled to take place earlier: at an “election victory conference” on November 30th in Berlin.

SPD needs extreme catching up for success

If Scholz wants to be re-elected, he will have to make an extreme comeback. In the surveys, the SPD is currently with values ​​between 14 and 16 percent, behind the AfD with 18 to 19 percent and far behind the Union with candidate for chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), which has values ​​​​between 32 and 34 percent.

Scholz recently recalled the 2021 federal election in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. “The reliability of such surveys is manageable, as the last federal election showed, even if some people quickly forgot that.” Two and a half months before the election, the SPD was also far behind the Union – by up to 16 percentage points – until a laugh from Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet changed the mood in the flood area. In the election, the Social Democrats won 25.7 percent of the votes and Scholz became chancellor of the first traffic light coalition of the SPD, Greens and FDP at the federal level.

Lindner: “People know what they are getting”

Former Finance Minister Christian Lindner, who was fired by Scholz, was one of the quickest to comment on the SPD’s decision on the K question in the evening. “It’s fine with me if Mr. Scholz is the SPD’s candidate for chancellor. People know what they’re getting. And what they’re not getting: #economic turnaround.”