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The SPD apparently also trusts Olaf Scholz as its candidate for chancellor in 2025. But there should be another favorite in the base.
Berlin – Friedrich Merz as the Union’s candidate for chancellor in the 2025 federal election? If only Olaf Scholz would be right. The SPD Chancellor recently admitted this publicly. And preferred to keep his motives to himself. Perhaps he believes the chances of missteps in the election campaign are greater for the CDU boss, who is sometimes short-tempered and always comes across as a bit of a teacher, than for example Hendrik WustDaniel Günther or even the omnipresent CSU frontman Markus Söder.
Then rather Merz, who seems to be clearly in pole position since his confirmation as chairman at the CDU party conference. This is how Scholz thinks about 16 months before citizens nationwide are asked to go to the polls.
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Does Merz feel the same way the other way around? In any case, the Scholz-SPD is well behind the CDU and CSU in surveys, which together are well ahead of all competitors for places in the Bundestag. The Social Democrats would currently lose up to ten percent compared to the 2021 result.
Nevertheless, no one seems to want to shake Scholz, who is also very present in the European election campaign. The leadership around chairmen Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil wants to do so despite the head of government’s historically poor poll numbers hold on to the 65 year old. Unlike last time, however, the selection of the official candidate for chancellor will only take place a few weeks before the election.
And until then, a lot of water will flow down the Spree and past the Reichstag building and the Chancellery. What also means: the wind can still change within the SPD and ultimately catapult Germany’s most popular top politician by far for months to the top. After all, Boris Pistorius is considered the only winner among the ministers of the traffic light government.
Pistorius as candidate for chancellor? “Clearly number one among the SPD base”
Heiko Wittig, a state politician, is already calling for a rethink in favor of Scholz’s confidante. “A lot of people at the SPD base say: Pistorius is clearly our number one,” claims the SPD parliamentary group leader in the North Saxony district council in the Daily Mirror (Article behind a paywall): “If Pistorius were to run as candidate for chancellor against Friedrich Merz, the Union’s 15 percentage point lead would quickly melt away.”
Things look completely different with the Chancellor: “Everyone I talk to criticizes: Scholz is too calm. The Chancellor has the authority to make directives, but Scholz does not exercise it. To this day it has not even visibly prevailed.”
In contrast, the Defense Minister, who has been in office for less than a year and a half, has managed to sharpen his profile rapidly. “Boris Pistorius speaks a clear language that everyone understands. People like that he appears tough,” praises Wittig: “He was already a good and strong interior minister in Lower Saxony. He makes clear announcements, he’s out there, talking to people, caring.”
K question in the SPD: “People are enthusiastic about Pistorius”
The turbulent times in view of the Ukraine war and the escalated Middle East conflict will probably also play a role in Pistorius’ popularity. It was much more difficult for his predecessors to create storms of enthusiasm in their interaction with the Bundeswehr. The successor and successor to Christine Lambrecht, on the other hand, has long been involved in the SPD’s K question.
What Wittig also gives his party colleague great credit for: “Pistorius has never stuck to his chair. The people are enthusiastic about him.” The 64-year-old gives him hope for a turnaround in the Sunday questions and a social democratic happy ending at the end of four years of traffic lights.
“With a candidate for chancellor, Pistorius, and with the long-overdue implementation of some good ideas, such as payment cards for asylum seekers or a revision of citizens’ benefits, the SPD has the best chance of winning the 2025 federal election,” he believes. These would be subject areas that the Union has been pushing the government with for months. And last but not least, opposition leader Merz the Chancellor. (mg)
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