SPD candidacy for chancellor: SPD wants to end K debate with Scholz nomination

With the renewed nomination of Olaf Scholz as candidate for chancellor, the SPD executive board wants to draw a line under the tough debate about the K question today. For two weeks, the party had publicly and controversially discussed whether the much more popular Defense Minister Boris Pistorius should be substituted for Scholz, who was ailing after the failure of his traffic light government.

Pistorius has a say

It was only last Thursday that Pistorius decided not to run for office, thereby clearing the way for Scholz to be nominated. The Defense Minister is one of the 33 voting members of the party executive committee who will decide on the nomination of the Chancellor on Monday.

The deadlock on the K question is still having an impact in the SPD. At the Federal Congress of Young Socialists (Juso), the youth association of the SPD, there was sharp criticism of the party leadership over the weekend. Juso boss Philipp Türmer accused party leaders Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil of leadership failure and spoke of a “shit show”.

Esken: “We didn’t give a really good picture”

Esken then admitted: “No, we didn’t give a really good impression when we nominated our candidate for chancellor.” Klingbeil defended the party leadership’s actions against it. “My claim to leadership is that you listen to the party, that you hold debates, that you think in different scenarios,” he said on Deutschlandfunk.

At the same time, Klingbeil called on the party to now look ahead to the election on February 23rd. “Now everyone has a collective responsibility to flip the switch and ensure that we start the election campaign.” Esken said with regard to Scholz in the ZDF program “Berlin Direkt”: “We are now going into this fight together with him.” The SPD stands on the side of the employees, tenants and families.

96.2 percent as a benchmark

After the nomination, Scholz’s candidacy for chancellor still has to be confirmed at the party conference on January 11th. This is considered a formality. However, Scholz has to be measured by his result from May 2021 – a good four months before the federal election. At that time, Scholz was confirmed with 96.2 percent of the vote.

At that time, as today, the SPD was polling between 14 and 16 percent. Only a laugh from Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet in the flood area brought about a turning point in the summer. The SPD became the strongest force with 25.7 percent.

SPD wants a duel between Scholz and Merz

The SPD is hoping that the challenger will make mistakes this time too. The party wants to focus the election campaign on the duel between Scholz and Union Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz. The Social Democrats accuse him of backward-looking politics and want to score points above all with Scholz’s government experience and certainty on issues.

However, when it comes to popularity ratings, he continues to perform worse in the surveys. In the current ZDF political barometer he is in 7th place and Merz in 5th place. Pistorius is the undisputed number 1. 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 present himself differently in the election campaign than a head of government who is keen to balance things out. Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Alexander Schweitzer (SPD) said in the ARD program “Report from Berlin” that the party now needs a combative and fighting Scholz. “The time for moderation in a difficult traffic light coalition is now over. Now we need the strong Olaf Scholz, who also shows where he wants to take the country,” emphasized Schweitzer.

For the first time, four candidates for chancellor

After Merz and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck for the Greens, Scholz is the third candidate for chancellor nominated by his party for the election on February 23rd. On December 7th, the AfD board wants to nominate party leader Alice Weidel as candidate for chancellor. For the first time, there are four candidates for chancellor in a federal election.