Germany: Defence Minister Boris Pistorius supports Olaf Solts – “I will not claim SPD leadership”

It seems to clear up the landscape at the SPD in view of the February 23 elections in . Defence Minister Boris Pistorius supported him by stating Friday morning (22.11.2024) that he will not claim the nomination of the candidate Chancellor of the Social Democratic Party. In recent weeks, German SPD and media officials have been in favour of Boris Pistorius’ nomination over this chancellor Olaf Scholtz, considering that he has a better chance of success in the upcoming early elections in the country. “I have just informed the leadership of our party and our parliamentary group that I do not intend to claim the office of chancellor. I’m not done here yet. There’s still a lot to do. The Secretary of Defense’s office is not for me a career starter. The trust of the army I have won is important to me,” says the Defence Minister in a video message he gave to the public through the SPD website and notes that the debate is damaging to the party and he wants to end it, while he neither started it nor participated in it. Boris Pistorius repeats that Olaf Salts has been a “excellent federal chancellor, who led a difficult three-party coalition amid perhaps the biggest crisis in the last decades”. His logic and understanding have “special significance in these uncertain times”, he adds, to conclude: “ Olaf Salts is a strong chancellor and is the right one for the nomination, ” ahead of the next election. In polls of the last few weeks the Minister of Defence, for months the most popular German politician, has been leading significantly by Olaf Salts to the question of choosing a candidate chancellor. In the last poll of German public television channel ARD, Boris Pistorius is preferred by 60% of respondents, while Olaf Salts is only 21%.