Berlin, Germany:
Olaf Scholz, the centre-left Social Democrat (SPD) candidate to succeed Angela Merkel, is usually described as boring, but could be on the verge of a sensational upset just after Sunday’s election.
With polls displaying the SPD narrowly ahead of Angela Merkel’s CDU-CSU conservative alliance, Scholz may perhaps have accomplished one thing lots of would have believed not possible just a year ago.
His SPD scored just 20.5 % in Germany’s last election in 2017 and has had a tough handful of years in coalition with the CDU-CSU, but appears on course to win at least 25 % of the vote this time.
“It’s going to be a long election night, that’s for sure,” Scholz stated just after the initial estimates had been released.
“But this is certain: that many citizens have put their crosses next to the SPD because they want there to be a change in government and also because they want the next chancellor to be called Olaf Scholz.”
Nicknamed “Scholzomat” for his robotic speeches, Scholz is one of Germany’s most influential politicians, with a reputation for getting meticulous, confident and fiercely ambitious.
– Channelling Merkel –
As finance minister and vice-chancellor below Merkel, he enjoys a close relationship with the chancellor and has even sought to position himself as the accurate Merkel continuity candidate, regardless of hailing from a diverse party.
He was pictured not too long ago on the cover of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung magazine adopting Merkel’s popular “rhombus” hand gesture — a stunt that provoked consternation from rivals in Merkel’s CDU camp.
During his time as finance minister, Scholz has cemented his reputation for getting on the fiscally conservative side of his workers’ party.
Despite agreeing to suspend Germany’s cherished “debt brake” to stave off the crippling effects of the coronavirus pandemic, he has insisted on a return to the policy by 2023.
“All this is expensive, but doing nothing would have been even more expensive,” he stated at the time.
Scholz’s cautious method has at occasions seen him marginalised inside the SPD, overlooked in a leadership vote in 2019 in favour of two fairly unknown left-wingers.