Olaf Scholz: Why does the Chancellor stay so cool?

The other day I took a last close to Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He performed in Mannheim at the Seniors’ Day. Scholz, 66 years old and voted out, met pensioners. He joked a bit about it himself, but the appointment had been appointed for a long time and would have actually fallen into the election campaign if Scholz had not obtained early elections.

I drove to Mannheim because I wanted to know if you notice Scholz a few weeks away from his severe election defeat and what happened afterwards. But he appeared well, gave a surprisingly spirited speech and answered a few questions in a round of conversation. Scholz replied as a provider of rickscha trips for seniors, the right of older people in the hair: “If you still have hair.”

Olaf Scholz is expected to be out of office next week. I think he has mastered the weeks since the election surprisingly confidently. As a chancellor, he managed the business without making himself important. After everything you hear, he supported the negotiations of the future coalition and tied his successor into important questions. Olaf Scholz has proven to be a good loser, as is well known, that is already a value in itself.

You have to make it clear again: Scholz has the worst election result of social democracy to answer since the Federal Republic was founded. He wanted to be re -elected, of course. The re -election is almost more important for Chancellor than the first, because the first time the ruling parties are voted out. In the second choice, it has to be shown whether you have won the trust of people yourself. Scholz cannot say that.

But this defeat is only one. After that he had to see how Friedrich Merz made the politics he had fought with him; As he promises, the constitution changed, piled up debts. Merz confirmed with his U -turn what Scholz had preached for weeks about the Union’s program: the financing is no good at the back and front.

I have a rather peaceful mind, but I have to admit: at Scholz ‘position I would have gripped the bare anger about Merz’ after the election. But the managing chancellor revealed nothing. He was sitting in the Bundestag for hours and listened motionlessly, as Merz was talking about his voter deception. Scholz was rightly kept his notorious legislation from time to time. But at the moment he had kept right to a trillion euro, he was silent.

Now he said that as a member of Merz, he would vote as a Chancellor in the Bundestag in the Bundestag. And as the summit of the subtle rebellion, he wishes for the songs for the Zapfenstreich Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”.

I would have loved to talk to Scholz about all of this. But he recently largely avoided journalists. Somehow understandable. Gone are over. If you ask his confidants, how he is doing, they credibly describe a relaxed man who is at peace with himself.

I had to think of a conversation with Scholz two and a half years ago. We were in a very small group in Prague late in Prague, and the Chancellor talked about his relaxed relationship to transience all earthly power, even political power, which made an important difference between democracies and authoritarian governments. You have to give him that: that’s exactly what he lives up now.