Olaf Scholz, the candidate without shocks who can give the bell

Olaf Scholz.Sciammarella

Olaf Scholz has been dragging the same briefcase for more than 30 years.

On Friday, when leaving the

jet

for his last electoral act in Cologne, the aspiring chancellor of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) carried the old briefcase that he began to use when he was a young labor lawyer in Hamburg and that he has walked through the most recent offices. important of Berlin.

When asked why he doesn't buy a new one, he simply replies that he hasn't found another one that he likes better.

Thus, without fanfare and without raising his voice, this leisurely and centrist politician is very close to reaching the most important position in German politics today. Many criticize his boring and monotonous style. He is unfazed. "I don't aspire to run a circus,"

Bild

replied to the tabloid last week

.

Born in Osnabrück, northwestern Germany, 63 years ago, Scholz is not a friend of frights. The journalists who these days have tried to learn more personal aspects about him have come across a wall. Neither his wife - Britta Ernst, also a Social Democratic politician, Minister of Education in the State of Brandenburg since 2017 - nor his parents, nor his two brothers - one doctor and another businessman - nor his closest friends want to drop a pledge. They have made a pact of silence not to speak of the man on whom all eyes are now falling. The couple decided very early not to have children for their respective political careers, aware of how absorbing they would be, explains journalist Peter Dausend, who has written about the SPD for years in the Hamburg weekly

Die Zeit.

Ich bin Olaf Scholz, Kanzlerkandidat der @spdde.

Mit Dir will ich unser Land nach vorn bringen: Für bezahlbaren Wohnraum, stabile Renten, faire Löhne für alle und eine moderne, klimaneutrale Wirtschaft.

Das ist soziale Politik für Dich.

Und das packe ich an.

pic.twitter.com/2L8hdeGwz6

- Olaf Scholz (@OlafScholz) August 6, 2021

The appointment of Scholz seemed sung long ago.

The succession of Social Democratic corpses that Angela Merkel had left behind her - from Gerhard Schröder to Martin Schulz, plus other candidates in between - left little choice.

In the SPD, no great alternative names were in sight for the first elections without the

eternal chancellor

.

But his rise to the top has been unusual for many reasons.

First, because eight months before being elected candidate he had suffered the humiliation of being defeated by a couple of strangers in the struggle to lead the party.

And second, because it is difficult to find in the polls a comeback similar to the one it has experienced these months: from a third place very far from the first two to leading the race, although the distance with the CDU has narrowed in recent days until become practically imperceptible.

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In both cases, Scholz's advantage and disadvantage are the same: his centrism. The militants preferred leftists Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans as heads of their centennial party over Finance Minister Angela Merkel, who at the time had a spending control policy that many Christian Democrats would have signed on to. In the memory, in addition, weighed his past as secretary general of the SPD at the time of the social cuts of Schröder and his management as Minister of Labor in the first term of Merkel, when he promoted the law to delay the retirement age to the 67 years. Scholz was then a very unpopular politician among many of his peers.But it is precisely this centrism - and his implicit ability to win votes in many fishing grounds - that led the SPD to elect him as a candidate and his popularity soared later.

Unlike his CDU rival Armin Laschet, Scholz has not had a slip this season.

Perhaps because he has not taken any risks.

But he may be saddened by some financial scandals that occurred under his tenure as Finance Minister, for which he had to testify this week before the Bundestag.

No direct responsibility is attributed to him, but there is a lack of supervision.

More information

• Germany reaches the end of the campaign with a technical draw between the SPD and the CDU

• Merkel comes to the rescue of Laschet and calls for mobilization in the final stretch of the campaign

It is true that Scholz has promoted orthodox policies. But he has also known how to take out his wallet when he saw it necessary. He did this in the mayor of Hamburg, which he headed between 2011 and 2018. As a minister, he has also injected a good jet of money into the economy during the coronavirus crisis. “He insisted that Germany get out of the coronavirus crisis as soon as possible. And that has made it very popular, "adds Dausend.

Spanish Vice President Nadia Calviño, who has coincided with him in countless meetings of European ministers or the G-20, highlights the "fundamental" role he played in the European response to the coronavirus crisis. "Especially in the launch of the European aid programs SURE [to subsidize employment aid such as ERTE] and the Next Generation EU", they add in the team of the Minister of Economy. From a personal point of view, Calviño highlights from Scholz a "respectful and listening to others" character and "deeply European" political convictions.

In this campaign, all his rhetoric exudes a strong social tone.

He has promised to raise the minimum wage to 12 euros, from the current 9.6, in his first year in office.

In each intervention, it is aimed at those who are having the worst, those who earn the least, those who do not have academic degrees.

For them it not only promises economic improvements.

He insists that society must respect everyone, regardless of their place on the social scale.

"It unnerves me to see in a restaurant that someone treats waiters with contempt," he said recently.

He acknowledges being rich, but also insists that those in his privileged situation should contribute by paying more taxes.

If Scholz wins the election today, the political scientists of the future will study his feat.

It is not only that in this campaign he has presented himself as the most

Merkelian

of the candidates, making them ironic by allowing themselves to be photographed with the characteristic gesture of the chancellor's hands in the shape of a rhombus. It is that he has achieved something that at first glance would seem incompatible: to contribute the plus of the experience that four years give him as Vice Chancellor and Minister of Finance and, at the same time, promise the illusion of change. These are such unusual elections that the representative of the party that has not won for 20 years brings proven management skills while the CDU, the formation that has led the country for 52 of its 72 years, presents a candidate who has never sat in the bench of the federal government. Christian Democrats who criticize Merkel for not stepping aside in time will, in that case, have a compelling argument.

The heads of the list of the seven parties with parliamentary representation met on Thursday in a final debate.

The moderators asked each leader what they gave up in their day to day to contribute to the fight for the climate.

Everyone began to tell how much they use public transport or electric cars.

Scholz, on the other hand, said that he could say that he has ever ridden to the ministry by bicycle, but that it would seem a bit hypocritical, considering the amount of polluting flights he takes for his work.

Once again, the old lawyer tried to get out of the situation without showing off.

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