Germany’s Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is facing growing pressure within his party, the SPD, against his plans to run for office again.
Several members believe that he should make room for Defense Minister Boris Pistorius to instead become the party’s candidate for the post of Chancellor in the upcoming election.
This is written by the German news agency dpa.
Joe Weingarten and Johannes Arlt thus became the first MPs from the SPD on Sunday to publicly call for Pistorius to become the party’s candidate.
The Minister of Defense is significantly more popular than Scholz in opinion polls, writes dpa.
– It is my clear opinion that we should enter the election campaign with Boris Pistorius, Weingarten said on Sunday to the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Shortly afterwards, Arlt declared the same position to the newspaper Tagesspiegel.
– Boris Pistorius would be an excellent candidate for chancellor. In my eyes, he is completely suitable to lead our party in the election campaign.
He added that as defense minister, Pistorius is in “the most challenging ministry” and that he is able to “explain political positions to people in simple and clear terms”.
Olaf Scholz declared in July that he planned to run for office again.
At the beginning of November, the German government was then reduced to a minority government when the Free Democrats (FDP) withdrew from the government coalition after the party’s Christian Lindner was fired as finance minister.
Scholz subsequently declared to parliament that the Germans will go to the polls early on February 23 instead of September, which was actually the plan.
– The SPD and I are ready to enter this debate with the goal of winning, the Chancellor said on Sunday, before flying to Brazil to participate in the G20 summit.
Both the SPD and Pistorius have said several times that there is support for Scholz’s candidacy.
– Olaf Scholz is Chancellor. And everyone who has a responsibility within the SPD has made it clear in recent days that we stand behind him, said Lars Klingbeil, who is general secretary of the SPD, on Saturday.
On Sunday, Pistorius confirmed that he too stands behind Scholz.
– We have an absolutely unique chancellor who – in one of the most difficult periods ever – took the reins in a challenging three-sided constellation (the government coalition, ed.), he said to ARD.
The defense minister added that he “definitely still expects that Olaf Scholz will be nominated.”
/ritzau/
Source: www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk
