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Olaf Scholz has said he will seek a second term as Germany’s chancellor, despite his dire approval ratings and polls showing that only a third of members of his party want him to lead them into the next election.
Scholz was responding to a reporter who asked him if he might follow US President Joe Biden’s example and withdraw from the race.
He said at his traditional summer press conference that his Social Democrats were “a highly united party, we are all determined to enter the next election campaign together and to win”.
“I will run for re-election as chancellor,” he added.
Asked if he was pained by the SPD’s dire polling, he said: “Poll results that aren’t good spur you on to achieve better poll results.” Scholz said he was “convinced” that he and his government would succeed in “turning things round” by the time of the next Bundestag election next year.
Scholz presides over a fractious three-party coalition made up of Social Democrats, Greens and liberals, who have been in near-permanent conflict with each other since coming to power in late 2021.
The three have slumped in the polls over the past year, achieving a combined share of just 31 per cent in European elections last month — only slightly ahead of the opposition Christian Democrats, who won 30 per cent.
Most recently, the governing parties clashed over the federal budget for 2025. Agreeing the budget involved months of drawn-out negotiations and deepened already grave ideological differences over fiscal policy.
Scholz’s SPD and the Greens wanted more spending on green policies, infrastructure and security, while the fiscally hawkish liberals insisted that the budget comply with Germany’s strict constitutional curb on new borrowing, the so-called “debt brake”.
Scholz’s government had been in office for less than three months when Russia invaded Ukraine. Ever since, it has had to battle a profound energy crisis as well as high interest rates and inflation. Germany was the worst-performing major economy last year, and ministers expect growth of just 0.3 per cent in 2024.
The bad economic news has fuelled the rise of the Alternative for Germany, a far-right party that is expected to win three crucial regional elections in the east German states of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg in September.
Many in the SPD fear the party could lose control of Brandenburg, which it has ruled since German reunification in 1990.
Scholz held his press conference two days after a new poll showed that only a third of SPD members thought he was the right candidate for chancellor in next year’s election.
Another third backed the popular defence minister Boris Pistorius, who has himself denied nurturing any ambition to succeed Scholz as chancellor.
Only 55 per cent of respondents in the Forsa poll said they were satisfied with the job Scholz was doing.
Scholz acknowledged the SPD needed to communicate more clearly to voters its various legislative achievements, such as increasing the minimum wage, pushing through tax breaks for low and middle earners, and guaranteeing the current level of the state pension.
He also hinted at the kind of election campaign he will run next year, emphasising the SPD’s commitment to strengthening the German armed forces and modernising the economy — particularly by encouraging investment by high-tech companies, speeding up planning procedures and reducing red tape.
He also projected a strong message on law and order, saying his government was committed to curbing illegal immigration and deporting greater numbers of failed asylum-seekers and foreign criminals.