(Bloomberg) -- Germany’s Social Democrats backed Chancellor Olaf Scholz as their lead candidate for February’s snap election, as they look to erase a big deficit in the polls.
Top SPD officials unanimously nominated the 66-year-old at a meeting Monday in Berlin. “Olaf Scholz is the right chancellor for Germany,” Saskia Esken, the co-leader of the party, said at a news conference.
The center-left party has a huge gap to close with the opposition conservatives under Friedrich Merz. According to recent voter surveys, the Social Democrats are in third place, with about half the support of the Christian Democrat-led bloc and also trailing the far-right Alternative for Germany.
The SPD stuck with Scholz, despite poor approval ratings and widespread frustration with his three-party ruling coalition, which collapsed earlier this month after the chancellor broke with the pro-business Free Democrats. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, the most popular Social Democrat, said last week that he wouldn’t seek the nomination.
A party congress is scheduled to take place on Jan. 11 to confirm Scholz’s candidacy for the Feb. 23 election.
Scholz is trying to distinguish himself and his party from Merz’s CDU/CSU alliance by highlighting that while Germany stands firmly by its pledge to support Ukraine, it’s also key to prevent the conflict escalating into a war between Russia and NATO.
The Social Democrats also aim to portray Merz as an aloof member of a rich German elite who — in contrast to Scholz — lacks the experience and prudence to lead Europe’s largest economy through geopolitical upheaval and economic uncertainty.
Despite headwinds from Germany’s sputtering economy, the SPD will pledge to lower taxes for families and the working class while raising income and inheritance taxes for richer citizens. They will also vow to increase investment in schools, infrastructure and security by reforming Germany’s strict limits on new borrowing.
(Updates with confirmation in second paragraph.)
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