At the beginning, Olaf Scholz was ridiculed for his candidacy for chancellor.
Now the finance minister could actually find a way into the chancellery.
Berlin - When the SPD presented Olaf Scholz as a candidate for chancellor for the upcoming federal election in 2021 last year, long before the Union and the Greens dealt with the issue of candidate for chancellor, the majority of the reactions consisted of ridicule and malice. How does Scholz, who a year earlier could not even assert himself as party leader within the Social Democrats, in 2021 at the top of the SPD, which was at the time in the survey basement, succeed Angela Merkel?
At that time it was questioned from many sides whether the SPD should even offer a candidate for chancellor in the current situation.
Now, two months before the election, the path to the Chancellery still seems very long for Scholz, but no longer impossible.
The 63-year-old benefits above all from the mistakes made by his competitors in the fight for the Chancellery.
Annalena Baerbock, who in the meantime helped the Greens to record poll numbers, has made a name for herself in the last few months mainly through incorrect information in her résumé or allegations of plagiarism about her book.
Federal election 2021: while the competition fails - Scholz as a sovereign crisis manager in the Chancellery?
Armin Laschet, on the other hand, does not exactly have the reputation of a maker and has repeatedly suffered setbacks in various surveys in recent weeks.
In a recent survey, only 26 percent of those questioned trusted the CDU politician to be able to respond appropriately to the challenges of the climate crisis.
In another Civey survey for
Der Spiegel
, just under a quarter of those questioned also found that Laschet is a good crisis manager in the event of natural disasters in Germany.
Olaf Scholz received 41 percent approval in the survey.
Fight for the Chancellery: The flood disaster could be a turning point for Scholz
It was almost symbolic that Olaf Scholz set off to Berchtesgaden in hiking boots and jeans to speak directly to those affected by the flood disaster, while Armin Laschet was in the background during a speech by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier Got caught joking and laughing. Should Scholz be able to maintain this good impression, which he made for many voters in the last few days, over the next two months, he could gain a few percentage points for the SPD.
Percentage points that can be decisive in the end.
Because even if the SPD would need nothing less than an election campaign miracle to be able to intercept the Union as the strongest force, there is another way for Olaf Scholz to enter the Chancellery.
If the SPD could still intercept the Greens before the federal election, a traffic light coalition with the Greens and the FDP, led by the Social Democrats, would be possible.
Then under Chancellor Scholz.
Scholz continues with chances for the Chancellery - traffic light coalition as the key
A scenario that is certainly possible, but in which Scholz would ultimately depend on the cooperation of the FDP. The SPD would then be dependent, especially in possible coalition negotiations, on getting the Free Democrats to their side with ministerial posts and programmatic confessions. Anything but an easy undertaking.
Because the tone between the two parties is not very friendly at the moment. Among other things, Ria Schröder, who sits on the federal executive committee of the FDP, wrote on Twitter with a view to the SPD candidate for chancellor: “I think it's good if the focus is now on Olaf Scholz. Then maybe we will finally talk about his cum-ex entanglements with Warburgbank, his responsibility for the Wirecard scandal and how he abandoned Hamburg at the G20. "
(Fd)
