Pressure grows on Germany's Scholz over bid for second term

By Andreas Rinke and Sarah Marsh

Pressure is piling on Germany's unpopular Chancellor Olaf Scholz to let someone else lead his Social Democrats into the upcoming snap election to give the party now languishing in third place in polls a better shot of catching up.

The SPD leadership has so far stood firmly behind Scholz's bid to run for a second term as chancellor in the national election, which was brought forward to February 2025 after his fractious three-way coalition collapsed on Nov. 6.

But there are growing calls in the SPD for Scholz to step aside in favour of his more popular defence minister, Boris Pistorius. Two federal lawmakers from Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, on Monday became the most prominent SPD politicians to date to question his candidacy.

"In the centre is the question of what the best political line-up is now for this election," said Dirk Wiese and Wiebke Esdar.

"We are hearing a lot of compliments for Boris Pistorius. It is clear that ultimately the party committees will decide on the question of the candidacy for chancellor, and that is also the right place for it."

A formal decision of the SPD leadership on the chancellor candidacy had been expected at the end of the month but could come earlier if deemed necessary to end a debate that could further harm the party.

Speaking on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brazil, Scholz did not directly answer questions about whether he would be the SPD's candidate - striking a more defensive stance on the issue than in previous briefings.

“The SPD – and also I – want to win this election together,” he told Die Welt in an interview, noting that he was confident of the leadership's backing.

“I can’t complain that I don’t have enough solidarity.”

An SPD leadership telephone conference on Tuesday evening to discuss the election campaign did not yield any decision on the issue.

UNPOPULAR

Opinion polls suggest neither Scholz nor Pistorius has a strong chance of becoming chancellor in February. The SPD is currently in third place at around 16%, behind the main opposition conservatives and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). That is down 10 points since the 2021 election.

Still, Pistorius consistently polls as Germany's most popular politician, including ahead of the conservatives' Friedrich Merz, giving some SPD supporters hope he could yet claw back support for their party.

Scholz meanwhile dropped for the first time to the bottom of a popularity ranking of top 20 German politicians in a survey by INSA published on Monday.

The chancellor's popularity tanked in recent years in tandem with that of his fractious coalition that fell apart earlier this month over the three parties' different approaches to saving Europe's largest economy from stagnation.

Scholz is also currently facing international backlash from his decision to call Vladimir Putin last Friday, breaking the West's isolation of the Russian president, despite the disapproval of close allies.

In a recent survey of SPD supporters by pollster Forsa, some 58% said they backed Pistorius as chancellor candidate compared with 30% for Scholz.

Asked if he would run, Pistorius has repeatedly said the SPD already has a candidate in Scholz.