German conservative leader Friedrich Merz launched his election bid with a stinging attack on chancellor Olaf Scholz, calling the Social Democrat Party (SDP) leader a “lightweight” and accusing him of sowing division in Europe’s biggest economy.
Mr Scholz confirmed the timeline for the national ballot, which is being brought forward from September after he dismantled his ruling coalition with the Greens and the Free Democrat Party (FDP) last week. After a prolonged spat over borrowing rules, he sacked Christian Lindner, the fiscally hawkish FDP finance minister, depriving his government of a parliamentary majority.
“This is about whether we move forward strongly like our partners worldwide, investing in the future and holding our country together – or whether we play one against the other at the cost of our future, at the cost of our unity,” Mr Scholz told a rowdy Bundestag chamber.
Christian Democratic Union leader Mr Merz, whose conservative group has a big lead in opinion polls, fired back, accusing Mr Scholz of being responsible for polarisation in Germany and calling his tactics in ending the ruling coalition “simply unworthy of a chancellor”.
“You obviously live in your own cosmos, in your own world,” Mr Merz said. “You have not understood what is happening out there in the country at the moment.”
Mr Scholz initially wanted the election to be brought forward to March to give his minority government more time to seek parliamentary approval for a number of outstanding bills.
After coming under pressure from the Greens, opposition parties and industry lobbies, among others, he agreed to submit to a confidence vote on December 16th that will pave the way for the election.
The political turmoil in Berlin comes with Germany mired in a prolonged period of stagnation and its manufacturers, including the key car sector, are struggling with waning global demand and facing disruptive transformations.
Germany’s economy will hardly grow next year, as underlying problems add to cyclical weakness, Mr Scholz’s independent panel of advisers warned in a report published Wednesday.
Mr Scholz ended his governing alliance on the same day that Donald Trump declared victory in the US election. The president-elect has raised doubts about further military support for Ukraine and stoked fears about a damaging trade war with China and Europe.
Opinion polls show Mr Merz’s alliance is leading with more than 30 per cent, putting it in a strong position to win back the chancellery after it lost narrowly to Scholz’s SPD party three years ago. Backing for the SPD is at about 16 per cent in third place, behind the far-right Alternative for Germany. The BSW leftist alliance led by Sahra Wagenknecht stands at 7-8 per cent in the federal polls. – Bloomberg