Klingbeil announces candidate for late summer

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SPD General Secretary Klingbeil: "We are very happy to have him in our ranks"

SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil has announced that his party will make the decision on the candidacy for chancellor for the 2021 federal election in just a few weeks. "We will decide on the chancellor candidate in late summer, and then the SPD will be the first of all parties to be ready to go," said Klingbeil to the editorial network in Germany.

Klingbeil said of the possible candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz: "Without a doubt: Olaf Scholz, as Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister, is successfully leading the country through the corona crisis together with Angela Merkel. We are very happy to have him in our ranks." However, the right to propose lies with the party leaders. Most recently, leading social democrats had urged a swift decision to run for chancellor.

Finance Minister Scholz was recently criticized in the wake of the Wirecard scandal. In essence, it's about who bears political responsibility. Scholz had to answer in front of the finance committee how he and his ministry proceeded in the Wirecard matter and why the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bafin) had not taken action for years because of the irregularities at the DAX company.

rwi / dpa-afxp