The austere Olaf Scholz, long unloved by the Social Democratic Party, is preparing to take over from Angela Merkel at the head of Germany, Wednesday December 8, thanks to his experience as minister and local elected representative and a flawless campaign. The 736 members of the Bundestag resulting from the September 26 ballot must elect him by secret ballot from 9 a.m. (8 a.m. GMT).
Until recently his SPD party was described as dying. Not only did he win the legislative elections in September but succeeded without a hitch in setting up an unprecedented coalition with the Greens and Liberals. All without making waves.
Who is this 63-year-old politician, nicknamed “Scholz-o-mat” for his impassive style and his responses sometimes close to those of a robot? Response elements.
Youth marked on the left
Born in Osnabrück in Lower Saxony (Germany), Olaf Scholz grew up in Hamburg, in a middle-class neighborhood, notes Politico (link in English). He joined the ranks of the Social Democratic Party very early on, when he was in high school.
At the time, the positions of the young German were much more to the left than today. He said he was close to Marxism in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and with these convictions he joined the Jusos, the working community of young socialists within the Social Democratic Party. Olaf Scholz, vice-president of this movement, will confide later that he was ultimately not so convinced by the far-left ideas of the movement, reports the Financial Times.
At the same time, the young activist continued to study law, and began his career as a lawyer specializing in labor law. He was elected Social Democrat deputy at the age of 40, then took the head of the party in his historic stronghold of Hamburg.
A long political career
Olaf Scholz sat in the Bundestag – the lower house of the German Parliament – from 1998 to 2001, then from 2002 to 2011. During these thirteen years, the former young socialist gained influence within the Social Democratic Party, becoming secretary of his parliamentary group in the Bundestag then his vice-president.
He enters the government in parallel (link in English), being appointed Minister of Labor and Social Affairs between 2007 and 2009, during the first of Angela Merkel’s four terms.
Two years later, Olaf Scholz became mayor of Germany’s second largest city, Hamburg, a post he would hold for seven years. His record at the head of this metropolis-Land is rather positive in terms of municipal management, but it remains marred by the violence that marked the city in 2017, on the sidelines of the G20 summit. Olaf Scholz returned to government the following year, becoming Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Finance.
A very centrist Social Democrat
The Social Democratic candidate has evolved considerably since his beginnings with Marxist overtones within the SPD. As recalled Le Figaro, he played a role in the launch of the liberal-inspired reforms of the German labor market, carried out in the 2000s by the social democratic chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The participation of Olaf Scholz in this “Agenda 2010”, which caused significant budget cuts in social benefits, earned him strong criticism from the left wing of the SPD.
As Minister of Labor and Social Affairs in a “grand coalition” with the CDU-CSU, Olaf Scholz notably raised the retirement age to 67 years, underlines the Financial Times. The Social Democrat, a financial expert within the SPD, believes that he “can only distribute what[il a] won “, underlines the British economic and financial daily.
His more conservative positions, sometimes divisive in his camp, cost him the presidency of the SPD in December 2019. Olaf Scholz was beaten by Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken, before being finally nominated as a candidate for the German federal elections.
His postures in terms of budgetary orthodoxy have evolved with the Covid-19 pandemic: managing the Finance portfolio, Olaf Scholz supervised the emergency investment plan aimed at helping German companies and employees in the midst of the crisis. “This is the bazooka we need to get things done (…) All of this is expensive, but doing nothing would have been even more expensive”, defended the vice-chancellor.
A course marred by scandals
Several cases have marked the local and national career of Olaf Scholz, without however really disrupting his campaign for the chancellery. As mayor of Hamburg, the Social Democrat has met on several occasions with one of the executives of a city bank, Hamburg’s MM Warburg & Co, implicated in a fraud case which lost 30 billion euros to the government, Politico recalls.
In Hamburg, the city council has also chosen to authorize the use of controversial drugs, because emetic, as part of the fight against drug trafficking. A man suspected of trafficking died a few months later in detention after having to take such medication.
More recently, Olaf Scholz was caught up in a money laundering scandal involving his ministry. Searches took place in September at the Ministries of Finance and Justice, as part of an investigation into the government department fighting these cases. As the Deutsche Welle reminds us (in English), this department is suspected of having ignored and not having sent to the police elements proving illegal payments.
A campaign between alternative and continuity
While playing the card of difference and renewal after sixteen years of the Merkel era, Olaf Scholz has also taken to his advantage his experience with the German Chancellor – a pledge of seriousness and competence for many voters. Finally, the Social Democrat may have appeared as the most logical heir to Angela Merkel, facing a Christian Democrat candidate, Armin Laschet, struggling to convince.
“Olaf Scholz is a sort of Merkel who swapped the colorful tailor for the mouse gray of the concentrated and prodigiously boring technocrat”, summarizes in Release Johann Chapoutot, professor of contemporary history at Paris-Sorbonne. The Social Democratic candidate, while proposing an increase in the minimum wage to 12 euros an hour, did not hesitate to bet on this comparison, posing by imitating the famous gesture of the “diamond” of the German Chancellor. “He can be chancellor” was also a slogan of the SPD during this campaign. A somewhat contradictory strategy between change and continuity, but which seems to have paid off.