Scholz faced pressure from own party to step down as election candidate, report says

BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz faced internal pressure from his own Social Democratic Party (SPD) to bow out as the party’s leadership candidate for the upcoming election, according to reporting by Tagesspiegel and t-online, two major German news outlets.

SPD leader Lars Klingbeil reportedly urged Scholz on at least two occasions to reconsider his candidacy following the collapse of Germany’s so-called traffic light coalition, led by Scholz’s party, in November 2024.

The outlets said that, according to “multiple” sources within the SPD leadership, Klingbeil echoed growing frustration among party officials and influential regional leaders over Scholz’s plummeting poll numbers.

The internal rift comes at a critical moment for the SPD, as the party scrambles to regain momentum amid stagnant support, polling between 15 and 16 percent in third place ahead of the Feb. 23 snap election. 

According to the reports, senior SPD figures, including co-chair Saskia Esken and Secretary-General Matthias Miersch, had concluded that Scholz’s bid to return as chancellor would severely jeopardize the party’s chances at the ballot box. Instead, many pushed for Defense Minister Boris Pistorius — Germany’s most popular politician, per polling at the end of last year — to take the lead.

But Scholz dug in, refusing to step aside despite the mounting pressure. The SPD publicly denied the claims Tuesday, with a party spokesperson dismissing the report as “false” to Tagesspiegel — though it was unclear which parts of the story were being refuted.

The cracks within the party became increasingly visible before Pistorius publicly ruled himself out as a candidate in November. That move ended weeks of speculation about a potential change in leadership going into the election. 

Critics have argued that Scholz’s failure to deliver on his much-touted Zeitenwende — the promised pivot to a bold, assertive foreign policy with vast increases in defense spending after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — has left both allies and voters questioning his credibility.