Who is Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor who succeeds Angela Merkel? – LCI

Two and a half months after the elections in Germany, Olaf Scholz became Chancellor this Wednesday, December 8. The 736 Bundestag deputies from the September 26 election elected him with 395 votes in favor, 303 against and 6 abstentions. He needed 369 votes to be elected. There was no doubt about his election as the ninth chancellor of post-war Germany: his Social Democratic Party (SPD), which came first in the legislative elections, has a comfortable majority (206 seats), with its two new partners coalition, the Greens (118 seats) and the Liberals of the FDP (92). The result of this vote marks the withdrawal of Angela Merkel after four terms of office which, within nine days, did not allow her to break the longevity record held by Helmut Kohl (1982-1998).

Successor in 2018 of the very orthodox Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schaüble, in favor of a government coalition, Olaf Scholz had first led an austere budgetary policy, of which his personality seemed the perfect incarnation. Having entered the SPD at the age of 17, Scholz wore long hair at the time, and very leftist ideas. Invested very early in political activity in his stronghold of Hamburg, he had also become, in civil matters, a lawyer specializing in labor law. He was elected deputy for the first time at federal level in 1998, at the age of 40, when Gerhard Schröder took the chancellery. He was also the secretary-general of the SPD between 2002 and 2004, when the chancellor’s liberal reforms were poorly accepted … particularly in his own camp.

First mayor of Hamburg from 2011 to 2018, Olaf Scholz carried out a social policy, but rather a spendthrift, before taking the head of the Ministry of Finance by proclaiming an opposite creed: “We only give what we have”. If he first applied this mantra in the straight line of the Merkel government, the pandemic will have finally given him an unexpected role, and which probably weighed for the victory of the SPD. Olaf Scholz has indeed loosened the strings of a purse that had been tight for a decade, with a stimulus plan of 130 billion euros. “All of this is expensive, but to do nothing would have been even more expensive”, proclaimed the Minister of Finance, overturning his image of austerity and stiffness, which had earned him the nickname of “Scholzomat” (based on the German word “Automat ‘, Editor’s note).

Disowned by his party two years ago, which had preferred an unknown pair to him, but more to the left, to lead him, the stature of Scholz had however managed to impose him as the SPD candidate for the chancellery. Now 63 years old, married to a local elected official, he has above all been able to benefit from the errors of his main opponents throughout the campaign.

Passed in front of the Greens then in front of the CDU, Scholz managed a spectacular summer “comeback”, while Armin Laschet (CDU) and Annalena Baerbock (Greens) aligned the blunders and the scandals until the day of the vote.