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Berlin, Germany- At the end of 2019, Olaf Scholz’s efforts to lead the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) encountered obstacles.
Instead, members voted for a little-known left-wing duo who promised to abandon the party’s loveless marriage with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats.
The so-called “major alliance” era has been numbered, under which Schultz served as finance minister and remained loyal. His own future is not clear.
But in the end, the party elected him as the prime minister’s candidate in last week’s federal election, but he was the recognized and respected Schultz.
As the results were filtered out on Sunday night, it became clear that the combination of the center-left plan and the trustworthy face worked miracles.
For the first time since 2002, the Social Democratic Party defeated the Christian Democrats by an advantage of 26% to 24%, which made Schultz an obvious favorite to become the prime minister after the ruling coalition was established.
Over the years, politicians and journalists have used many descriptive words to capture Scholz’s iconic indifference – sometimes likened to a Smurf, a robot, and a middle-level bank clerk.
Scholz is the proud son of Hamburg. Most of his political career has been closely related to this port city. He represents the calmness of his “Hanse League”.
“He knows very well that he doesn’t say too much,” said Matthias Adler, editor of Tagesjournal, the popular Hamburg newsletter. “If you have a deal with him, he is reliable.”
Scholz was born in 1958 and grew up in eastern Hamburg. After completing his studies there, he studied law and became an employment lawyer.
He has been a member of the Social Democratic Party since he was a teenager, became a state senator at the age of 40, and is known for his tough stance on law and order.
He joined the Bundestag of the German Bundestag in 2002 and became the party secretary of the second term of the Social Democratic Party Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder shared a moment with Schultz, then General Secretary of the Social Democratic Party [File: Reuters]Scholz was more radical in his youth and became a disciple of Schroeder’s third way politics, supporting his plan to reform the German welfare system.
These reforms, called the “2010 Agenda” and aimed at stimulating economic growth, are divisive.
By cutting welfare and worker protection, the traditional Labor Party has created a new low-income and poor working class-an albatross who has been around the neck of the Social Democratic Party during Merkel’s administration.
After serving as chief whip and labor minister, he returned to Hamburg in 2011 and became mayor.
There, Scholz set about rebuilding SPD. He promoted housing construction that had fallen to crisis levels and improved the performance of the school.
He dredged the port to accommodate the world’s largest container ship and renegotiated the contract to finally complete the Elbe Philharmonic Hall, which opened six years later than originally planned and exceeded the budget by hundreds of millions of euros.
“This is one of his strengths, negotiate and clarify what he wants,” Adler told Al Jazeera.
As the mayor, Schultz is keen on grand projects to advance the skyscraper plan, locally known as the “Schultz Tower”, and proposed to host the Olympics-a proposal that was completely defeated by the city’s voters in a referendum.
“He feels very confident. Almost arrogantly confident,” Adler added.
Schultz hosted the G20 summit in 2017 regardless of safety recommendations. As the city’s powerful left-wing members clashed with the police, chaotic scenes ensued, drawing global media attention and embarrassing Schultz, who was forced to admit his mistakes.
“Apologizing is not easy for him,” Adler said.
In 2017, he was appointed Minister of Finance by Merkel. Although he has long been eager to minimize borrowing and balance the budget as conservatives, he seems to have changed course after his humble failure to become a leader in 2019.
“It is wrong to cut investment during the economic crisis,” he told Time Weekly in December of that year, adding that this has been done in the past, but “it will not happen to me.”
The next crisis came soon. During the coronavirus pandemic, Schultz became a popular figure and temporarily lifted the borrowing restrictions stipulated by the German Constitution in order to release billions of dollars to keep the business running.
In Brussels, he softened Germany’s traditionally hard-line stance on debt sharing with other EU member states and played an important role in passing the EU’s 750 billion euros (869 billion US dollars) coronavirus recovery plan.
On September 26, after the first exit poll for the Berlin election, Scholz (left) and the party co-leader Saskia Esken reacted [Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters]During an election campaign, two of his competitors suffered embarrassing gaffes and allegations of professional stuffing and plagiarism.
He was not affected by two major financial scandals, and he earned another nickname: Teflon Scholz.
German prosecutors raided Scholz’s Ministry of Finance a few weeks before polling day, looking for evidence that one of its agencies was told to ignore suspicious transactions by Wirecard, a large financial company, after investigating multi-billion dollar fraud. It closed down severely last year.
Others questioned his role in the large-scale CumEx tax evasion scandal. Hamburg’s tax authorities failed to recover the 47 million euros ($54 million) owed by a local bank, and Scholz, the owner of the bank, met several times. The bank has repaid the money, and Scholz has denied any wrongdoing.
“These cases are too difficult to understand,” said Ursula Munch, dean of the Tutzing School of Political Education. “It’s easier for the public and journalists to talk about [embarrassing] Videos, books, and resumes, not financial surveys. “
As the game draws to a close, Scholz’s popularity continues to rise, far surpassing his competitors. In the debate among television leaders, he emphasized the Social Democratic Party’s plans to raise the minimum wage, promote social welfare, and invest in climate protection.
Audience polls rated him as the winner of every game, and the party clung to his tail.
On the election billboard, Scholz crossed his arms and wrote a simple message: “Who wants Scholz, please vote for SPD.”
In the final weeks of the campaign, conservatives tried to portray Schultz as a puppet controlled by the more hardline leftists in the party, but to no avail.
Adler believes that the “amazing” cooperation within the notorious faction of the Social Democratic Party is real, but Schultz will not be manipulated.
“I think he will be his own,” he said.
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