SPD starts election campaign
Despite weak poll numbers: Scholz is fighting for the next election victory
After the traffic light goes out, new elections will take place in February. Olaf Scholz wants to get his party in the mood for the election campaign with an “election victory conference”. Will that improve his prospects?
With a big speech by Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz, the SPD starts the election campaign on Saturday, 85 days before the expected election date. Around 400 candidates are expected at the party headquarters in Berlin. Party leaders Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil will also speak.
Despite weak poll numbers, the Chancellor believes his party has a chance of winning the federal election in February. “The conservatives are trying to make us believe that the election is already over. That’s sheer nonsense,” Scholz told the SPD party newspaper “Vorwärts” on Friday. “We are fighting for another election victory.”
However, the SPD is currently only getting values between 14 and 16 percent in the surveys. The Union with its candidate for chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) is well over 30 percent, the AfD is in second place with 17 to 19 percent. In the 2021 federal election campaign, Scholz was able to successfully catch up from a similar starting position and won.
Olaf Scholz has already won election campaigns twice in February
“The SPD can campaign, we have proven that time and time again,” said the Chancellor in the “Vorwärts” interview. “And I have already had very good experiences with February as an election date twice: I achieved very good election results in February with the SPD in Hamburg in 2011 and 2015. I take that as a good omen for the next few months.”
The party leadership nominated Scholz as its candidate for chancellor on Monday. This was preceded by days of speculation about a possible candidacy of the much more popular Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. But he then explained that he was not available. Scholz will be officially confirmed as candidate for chancellor at an SPD party conference on January 11th.
On Saturday, the SPD will start the federal election campaign with an “election victory conference” in Berlin. According to the party, Scholz will give “his first election campaign speech” there.
DPA · AFP
cl
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
