It was without a tie and in an unbuttoned shirt collar that Olaf Scholz launched his campaign, Monday, November 25, at the Willy-Brandt-Haus, headquarters of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in Berlin, in front of an audience of journalists. The outgoing chancellor who, at 66, is “cooler” that his rival Friedrich Merz, the president of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who is 69 years old, had just a few hours earlier been designated candidate by the party authorities, at the end of a brief and muted internal competition having hit the political headlines.
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Some of the activists and some figures of the SPD have in fact continued to plead, since the end of the summer, for a candidacy of the Minister of Defense, Boris Pistorius, more popular in public opinion, before this one affirms not to run for chancellor, in a video published Thursday, November 21. In order to put an end to the protest for good and convey an image of unity, Boris Pistorius, with whom the chancellor said he was “friend for a very, very long time”, was also present on Monday for the launch conference. However, he did not speak.
Olaf Scholz must still be officially confirmed at the party congress on January 11, 2025, in Berlin. For him, time is running out, as he must lead a lightning campaign while continuing to lead a now minority government, unable to pass the 2025 budget in the Bundestag. The legislative elections were brought forward by more than six months after the chancellor dismissed his finance minister, the liberal Christian Lindner, on November 6, breaking up the tripartite coalition he had led since 2021.
In economic recession
Although he repeats that he does not give any credibility to the polls, Olaf Scholz approaches this deadline with very unfavorable forecasts, which the withdrawal of Boris Pistorius has in no way improved. The SPD peaks at around 14% of voting intentions, compared to 32% for the conservatives of the CDU-CSU and almost 20% for the AfD, the far-right party.
The deterioration of the economic situation, although drawing its source from structural difficulties in Germany, is penalizing for the outgoing coalition, the country facing its second year of economic recession and an increase in announcements of company restructuring: during At the press conference, Germany's largest steel producer, Thyssenkrupp Steel, announced 5,000 job cuts. This is already one of the CDU-CSU's angles of attack against the current government.
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