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Germany’s Social Democratic Party decides to nominate Scholz for chancellor

According to the party’s co-leader Saskia Esken, the nomination must be approved by the party congress due to be held on January 11, 2025

BERLIN, November 25. /TASS/. The Germany’s ruling Social Democratic Party’s (SPD) board has unanimously decided to nominate incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz as its candidate in the upcoming snap parliamentary election, the party’s co-leader Saskia Esken said.

The board held its meeting on Monday. The nomination must be approved by the party congress due to be held on January 11, 2025.

"Today, both the presidium and the board unanimously decided to nominate Chancellor Olaf Scholz as our candidate for the upcoming election. Given the situation our country, Europe and the world are in, Scholz is the right chancellor for Germany," she told a news conference.

Germany’s ruling coalition broke up in November, with neither of its remaining members, the SPD or the Greens, owning a majority in the Bundestag, which will carry out a vote of confidence in the government on December 16. It is highly likely that the government will not be able to secure the parliament’s confidence and in this case an early election could be held on February 23, 2025.

Following the coalition’s break-up, Scholz signalled that he would run for chancellor again at the next election. The party’s senior officials decided to support Scholz despite waffling early on, with some of the party’s activists and lawmakers voicing support for Defense Minister Boris Pistorius as a potential candidate, the thinking being that he is more popular among the public than Scholz. However, on November 21, Pistorius officially announced that he was not going to run for chancellor, backing Scholz.

Meanwhile, Scholz’s chances to become Germany’s chancellor again are seen as quite low, as his party lags behind not only its main rival, the CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union) bloc, which is expected to nominate CDU leader Friedrich Merz, but also the Alternative for Germany. If CDU/CSU form a large coalition with the SPD, which is seen as the most probable scenario, the chancellor’s office will be taken by Merz, while Scholz could assume a top position in a key ministry, such as the finance or foreign ministry.

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