Only a few candidates voted against Scholz.
Germany’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) on Saturday confirmed current Chancellor Olaf Scholz as the party’s electoral leader, who will lead it in February’s federal parliamentary elections. TASR informs based on the report of the DPA agency.
Scholz was elected in a popular vote by a large majority of the delegates present during the party congress in Berlin. Only a few candidates voted against. According to the DPA, a public election traditionally serves as a “barometer” to demonstrate the breadth of support for a candidate. Traditionally, voting is done by raising one’s hand or standing up.
The party nominated Scholz as its chancellor candidate in November after a heated debate. According to DPA, one of the people considered as a potential replacement for the current chancellor was Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who, according to DPA, is significantly more popular than Scholz.
The popularity of the current chancellor and the party suffered a hard blow after the defeat of the SPD in the June elections to the European Parliament, which resulted in the collapse of the government coalition in November, reminds DPA. The party leadership justified the public election by saying that the politician is now running as an incumbent chancellor, not as a challenger, as was the case in 2021, when he was elected chancellor for the first time. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the candidate was decided in a secret online election. Scholz won 96.2 percent of the vote, adds DPA.
