German chancellor hopeful Scholz does not wish to head SPD

Berlin (dpa) – Olaf Scholz, the candidate for chancellor put up by the Social Democrats (SPD) in the September elections, will not bid to head the party, after one of its co-leaders announced he is standing down when the party holds its congress in December.

Scholz, who has served as finance minister since 2018 in outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s broad coalition, took the SPD to a narrow victory in the elections, making him Merkel’s presumptive successor.

He is currently engaged in three-way talks with two smaller parties, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), to form a viable coalition for the next four years.

Scholz, who is currently at a G20 finance ministers meeting in Rome, made his position clear following the announcement by SPD chairperson Norbert Walter-Borjans that he is standing down as co-leader.

Walter-Borjans was elected to chair the party along with Saskia Esken following a drawn-out election process in 2019 when the traditional party of the German left was deep in the doldrums, with opinion polls pointing to a catastrophic performance at federal level.

The two then led the party to 25.7 per cent of the vote in the elections, narrowly beating Merkel’s conservative bloc into second place on 24.1 per cent.

“For me, being chairman was from the outset not linked to a further career, but rather the aim of bringing the party back on course,” Walter-Borjans, 69, told the Rheinische Post newspaper in announcing his decision.

“I’ve come so far with this mission, that I can now say: someone younger should now take over.”

Esken paid tribute to her co-leader, pledging that the SPD would pursue the coalition talks to a successful conclusion.

After a round of exploratory talks, the SPD, the Greens, who took 14.8 per cent, and the FDP, who took 11.5 per cent, have begun formal talks amid optimism on all sides that they will reach a deal before Christmas.

The parties are at pains to avoid a repeat of the drawn-out coalition formation that followed the 2017 elections, when it was five and a half months before a deal was finally hammered out.

A broad coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), their Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the SPD has ruled Germany under Merkel as chancellor for 12 of the past 16 years.