{"id":406956,"date":"2024-11-21T16:57:24","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T15:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/11\/21\/spd-germania-scholz-pistorius\/"},"modified":"2024-11-26T17:24:42","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T16:24:42","slug":"german-spd-in-turmoil-scholz-on-the-brink-pistorius-option-gains-momentum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/11\/21\/german-spd-in-turmoil-scholz-on-the-brink-pistorius-option-gains-momentum\/","title":{"rendered":"German SPD in turmoil: Scholz on the brink, Pistorius option gains momentum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Ever since German Chancellor\u00a0Olaf Scholz<\/strong>\u00a0initiated<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0government crisis<\/strong>\u00a0by firing his finance minister, liberal leader\u00a0Christian Lindner<\/strong>,\u00a0there has been a heated debate in his\u00a0Social Democratic Party (SPD)<\/strong>\u00a0over who should\u00a0lead the centre-left into early elections<\/strong>\u00a0in the calendar<\/a>\u00a0for February 23, 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n

The party is split between the loyalists of the current chancellor<\/strong>, i.e., the SPD cadres, and an internal faction<\/strong> that is growing larger and larger from the grassroots and is clamouring to replace the face of the candidate<\/strong> by putting its Defense Minister Boris Pistorius<\/strong> in Scholz’s place. The reason is simple, and it is the vertical collapse in support for the head of government<\/strong>: according to a recent poll commissioned by the B<\/i>ild<\/em><\/a>, Pistorius’ approval rating stands at 52.8 per cent<\/strong>, while Scholz’s has dropped to 31.4<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The party leadership meeting<\/strong> held last Tuesday was inconclusive<\/a>; no final decision<\/strong> was reached<\/strong> on the leading name for the campaign. Instead,\u00a0 the rift that runs along the entire SPD, from the grassroots to the top, emerged with evidence. Those who support Scholz leverage the jump in the dark<\/strong>\u00a0in changing candidates three months before the election and emphasize the advantages of campaigning from the pedestal of the chancellorship.\u00a0On the other hand, calls are multiplying (starting in the territories) to unite the party around a figure capable of curbing<\/span>\u00a0SPD’s dramatic bleeding of support<\/strong>,\u00a0<\/span>evidenced\u00a0<\/a>by the <\/span>resounding<\/strong><\/span> defeats in the eastern\u00a0<\/strong>L\u00e4nder<\/strong>\u00a0last fall.<\/span><\/p>\n

Currently, the Social Democrats are polled\u00a0at around\u00a016 per cent<\/strong>, behind Friedrich Merz<\/strong>‘s CDU\/CSU (stable at 32 per cent) and the ultra-right AfD<\/strong>, which is polled at\u00a019 per cent. According to former SPD leader Sigma Gabriel<\/strong>, the party needs a “fresh start” and “courageous political leadership<\/strong>,” two elements that he believes can come from Pistorius, while Scholz’s “business as usual” would drop the progressives below the psychological threshold of 15 per cent<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Commenting from Rio de Janeiro, where he attended the G20, the Bundeskanzler<\/strong> declared, “We want to win together<\/strong>, the SPD and me.” On the other hand, Pistorius<\/strong>, who, although has publicly reiterated his loyalty to the leader<\/strong> (“we have a chancellor candidate, he is the current chancellor”) and has portrayed himself as “a soldier of the party,” has never explicitly ruled out being available to replace him<\/strong>: “In politics, you can never rule out anything,” he remarked recently, adding that the only certain thing is that “I will not become pope.”<\/p>\n

Part of the popularity of Pistorius<\/strong>, who heads a traditionally “difficult” ministry in Germany, is due to the clear stance he has always maintained over the war in Ukraine, supporting the Kyiv resistance<\/strong>. On the contrary, Scholz’s image grew weaker and weaker as his semaphore coalition<\/strong> (SPD, Greens and FDP liberals) litigated and trudged<\/strong>, struggling to agree on major legislative measures, eventually falling apart in early November.<\/p>\n

Whatever the final choice will be, the SPD must make it quickly. The party’s<\/strong> federal congress<\/strong> is scheduled for Jan. 11. But by then, it will be too late to replace Scholz with anyone else. If the political era of the outgoing chancellor appears to have come to an end, however, it is likely that Pistorius will remain a leading figure of the German centre-left<\/strong> in the coming years, and he may well continue to hold the Defense Ministry in the new government, which could be a great coalition CDU-SPD<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With four months to go before Germany’s early elections, the Social Democrats are split over who will be the candidate for chancellor. The party leadership is rallying around Olaf Scholz, while the base is calling for him to be replaced by Defense Minister Boris Pistorius<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":406821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[26267,29761,29715,26268,27786],"class_list":["post-406956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-boris-pistorius-en","tag-election-germany-2025-en","tag-olaf-scholz-en","tag-spd-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406956"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":407531,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406956\/revisions\/407531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}