Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday he will run to be chancellor again in Germany’s 2025 election despite his party’s poor performance in recent surveys, as a September date was confirmed for the vote.
“I will run as chancellor, to become chancellor again,” Scholz told journalists at his annual summer press conference in Berlin.
The cabinet had earlier signed off September 28, 2025 as the date for the election.
Scholz became chancellor after his centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) won Germany’s last general election in 2021.
The SPD formed a coalition with the Greens and the liberal FDP, but the parties have since clashed over a wide range of issues including climate measures and budget spending.
The war in Ukraine, the ensuing energy crisis and high inflation have also contributed to a general sense of discontent with the government.
All three ruling parties have seen their ratings plummet, with the conservatives now the biggest party and the far-right AfD polling in second place.
The SPD scored its worst ever result in June’s EU elections with just 14 percent.
Amid the turmoil, Scholz has also seen his popularity slide within his own party.
Only one-third of SPD members believe he is the right candidate for chancellor in 2025, according to a recent survey — with Defence Minister Boris Pistorius the preferred option for many.
But Scholz on Wednesday said his party was “very united behind what I am doing”.
“There has probably never been such a united SPD as the one we put together before the (2021) federal election and it managed to win the … election from a difficult starting position,” Scholz said.
The SPD had also been polling badly before the 2021 election but managed to stage a last-minute comeback, in part thanks to a weakened conservative camp that struggled to convince voters without former chancellor Angela Merkel.
“We will remain united and pursue our course,” Scholz said.
Asked about potential young SPD candidates to replace him, Scholz even suggested he could see himself staying on as chancellor for more than one more term.
The party will be ready for that “at the end of the next legislative period or the one after that”, he said.
Competent Kamala
He also said that it was “entirely possible” that US Vice-President Kamala Harris will win November’s presidential election, describing her as “competent and experienced”.
Following 81-year-old President Joe Biden’s stunning decision to exit the race for the White House on Sunday, Harris has emerged as the virtually unchallenged frontrunner for the nomination of their Democratic party.
Scholz told reporters at his annual summer press conference in Berlin that “I think it’s entirely possible that Kamala Harris wins the election but it will be American voters who decide”.
Scholz said that Harris was “a competent and experienced politician who knows exactly what she’s doing.”
He said his own exchanges with Harris had been “conversations where she put forward her views authentically” and was not simply “saying something prepared beforehand”.
He added that Harris had “clear ideas about the role of her country in the world and the challenges that confront us”.
“What happens there is of the greatest importance for all countries in the world and of course especially for the close allies of the US in Germany and in Europe,” Scholz said.
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