Announcement to the CDU & AfD

Low in the polls: Scholz swears SPD to catch up

SPD party conference confirms Olaf Scholz as candidate for chancellor

(Bild: AFP)

Six weeks before the Bundestag elections, the SPD special party conference in Berlin has officially chosen German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as its candidate for chancellor. Scholz had previously committed his party to a race to catch up in the hot phase of the election campaign. "Winter election campaigns can have a good ending," he said in his speech. In Hamburg, he had stood for election twice in February and won. He called the developments in Austria "serious".

"There's a hell of a lot at stake," said Scholz. "We are fighting to preserve and renew the successful 'Made in Germany' brand - for the ordinary people in our country. So, let's fight."

SPD party conference confirms Olaf Scholz as candidate for chancellor

(Bild: AFP)

The 600 delegates celebrated him with minutes of standing applause. Scholz was then confirmed as candidate for chancellor by a show of hands - there were only a few dissenting votes.

Trailing the CDU/CSU by between 13 and 20 percentage points
The Social Democrats want to become the strongest party again in the election on February 23, but are currently trailing the leading CDU/CSU by between 13 and 20 percentage points in the polls, and are also trailing the AfD. In the ZDF Politbarometer on Friday, the Social Democrats were also overtaken by the Greens for the first time in a year and only came in fourth place. When asked about their preferred chancellor, even the AfD candidate Alice Weidel now performs better than Scholz.

Scholz: "We will win"
 After his election as candidate for chancellor, he said that, like last time, he wanted to surprise everyone who thought they already knew how it would turn out. "We will win."

Scholz had previously prepared the delegates for a directional election campaign in a 51-minute speech. "We really are at a crossroads in Germany," he said. If Germany takes a wrong turn on February 23, "then we will wake up in a different country".

The Chancellor had already made it clear on several occasions that he wanted to focus the election campaign on a duel with the Union's candidate for Chancellor, Friedrich Merz. "Now is not the time for slogans. Now is not the time for age-old recipes. Now is not the time for politics on the backs of ordinary people," he called out to the delegates. "Or more succinctly: Now is not the time for the CDU and CSU in Germany."

"Perhaps I should have hit the table earlier"
 The review of his three-year term in office as Chancellor of the traffic light coalition only appeared briefly in the speech. The Chancellor conceded that he perhaps should have ended the government with the Greens and FDP earlier. "Perhaps I should have hit the table earlier, not just behind the scenes, but publicly."

This time, the Chancellor largely refrained from harsh criticism of his former coalition partner, the FDP, or the Greens and instead focused on the CDU/CSU.

Shift to the right in Austria "depressing"
 Scholz urgently warned against right-wing populists and attacks on democracy. He called the shift to the right in Austria "depressing". Scholz said of FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl: "He is, there is no other way to put it, an extreme right-winger."

Germany's Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz views the developments in Austria with the possible chancellorship of FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl "with great concern", as he recently stated.

(Bild: APA/HELMUT FOHRINGER)

The case of Austria shows: "It's serious." The fact that a right-winger is now likely to become head of government in a neighboring country "is not something we can simply accept," warns Scholz. In America, too, forces are working to "destroy our democratic institutions".