File it under old white men who won’t stop electioneering.
Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced he intends to run for reelection next year — despite his low ratings.
“The SPD is a very united party. We are all determined to campaign together in the next federal election and to win. And I will run to become chancellor again,” the Social Democratic Party (SPD) politician told reporters during his annual press talk on Wednesday, which lasted nearly two hours.
That decision, however, seems out of touch against the backdrop of June’s European Parliament election. Voters in Germany delivered a crushing blow to the ruling coalition — made up of Scholz’s SPD, the Greens, and the pro-business Free Democratic Party — handing the SPD its worst national vote result in more than a century.
The country’s biggest opposition force — an alliance of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party (CSU) — is currently polling in first place with around 31 percent, while the far-right Alternative for Germany is second with around 17 percent, leaving ruling coalition parties in the dust.
In a recent survey of the country’s decision-makers and executives conducted by the Allensbach Institute, the CDU’s Friedrich Merz — expected to become Scholz’s main opponent next year — was preferred as Germany’s next chancellor by 64 percent of respondents.
That’s an increase of 17 percentage points compared to last year. Scholz, on the other hand, was supported by only 33 percent of respondents.
Persistent coalition infighting since the government formed after Germany’s 2021 election — on everything from Russia’s war in Ukraine, to a scheme to replace gas boilers with heat pumps, to budgetary shortfalls — has delayed policymaking and destabilized the alliance.
“By the time elections for the German Bundestag are held, we will have turned things around,” Scholz told reporters in Berlin. His Cabinet previously chose Sept. 28, 2025 as the date of the upcoming national vote; it will become official once the country’s president signs off.
But questions remain about Scholz’s popularity within his own ranks as well: Only one in three SPD members want him to run again for chancellor in the 2025 election, according to a Forsa survey published earlier this week.
“Bad survey results are a good incentive,” Scholz said when asked about the poll. “We have to be convincing through actions, through what we do and what we have done, and through clarity.”
The German government’s focus over the next 14 months will be on industrial growth, Scholz said, referring to recent investments and relocations in the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries, respectively.
Meanwhile, Germany’s economy continues to contract, with manufacturing output falling in July to a three-month low, according to S&P Global’s eurozone manufacturing purchasing managers index.
Politico
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