In Finance Minister Scholz, the SPD has a candidate for chancellor who was previously considered a representative of the conservative party wing. But the party left Kühnert, who has often attracted harsh criticism in the past, is expressly campaigning for the Vice Chancellor.
Berlin (dpa) - The Juso chairman and party left Kevin Kühnert has assured the SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz the support of the social democratic youth organization.
"We do this in the knowledge and the realization that we - and that is the difference to previous years - are running in a common direction," said Kühnert on Tuesday in Berlin. At the same time, he expressly warned the left wing of the party against destructive criticism.
The day before, the Executive Board and Presidium of the Social Democrats had unanimously nominated Scholz as candidate for Chancellor. The SPD is the first party represented in the Bundestag that can present a top candidate for the election in autumn 2021. The goal is a majority left of center, said Kühnert. "Perhaps it is then Olaf Scholz who would be more capable than anyone else of making such an alliance possible and actually making it a majority."
North Rhine-Westphalia's Prime Minister Armin Laschet (CDU) considers the date of nomination to be premature. "I would advise all of us to continue working well together in the grand coalition for as long as possible," said the CDU vice-president in Düsseldorf. This is exactly what the SPD chairwoman Saskia Esken assured, however. "You can rely on us to continue to exert such constructive and successful influence," she said in the ZDF "Morgenmagazin".
Her co-chairman Nobert Walter-Borjans emphasized the party's right to have a say in the election manifesto. "I have always said that a candidate for chancellor cannot simply push through his agenda," he told the editorial network in Germany. "At the same time, the party must not impose a program on its candidate."
The coalition partners CDU and CSU meanwhile expressed skepticism. "Now is not the time for the election campaign and the choice of candidates," said CSU General Secretary Markus Blume of the "Passauer Neue Presse". "Our country is facing great challenges and huge tasks in the corona pandemic." The chairman of the Junge Union, Tilman Kuban, accused the SPD of disorientation. "How a left-wing program with a focus on green-red-red should fit the candidate Olaf Scholz remains a mystery," he said on the RTL program "Guten Morgen Deutschland".
The left is striving for a tough socio-political confrontation with the Social Democrats in the election campaign. "We will not mess with the SPD in terms of content," said Left Party leader Katja Kipping on Deutschlandfunk. She was cautious about the Scholz nomination. It is crucial that you make progress in terms of content - for example with protection against poverty and the higher taxation of millions of dollars.
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