A ‘smurf’, a ‘plumber’, a ‘know-it-all’: Olaf Scholz has been called many things. But so far Germany’s chancellor has brushed off the criticism. ‘I like the smurf thing,’ he told German media, ‘they are small, cunning and they always win.’ Being associated with the ‘honourable craft of plumbing’ made him ‘proud’. And of all the epithets to acquire, ‘know-it-all’ may not have been the worst; unless, that is, you run out of answers.
Scholz has had a tricky year in 2023. With crisis after crisis engulfing his administration, few Germans now trust him to offer viable solutions. A survey earlier this month suggested that only a fifth of voters are currently satisfied with the chancellor’s work – the worst result recorded since this type of polling began a quarter of a century ago. If they could pick a chancellor from any political party, only 5 per cent said they would choose Scholz.
What’s worse is that Scholz doesn’t appear to care about the increasing despair in his country
This year has also been a difficult one for Germans. Food prices have risen by another 6.1 per cent from already high levels in 2022. Soaring energy prices mean that 5.5 million Germans say they weren’t able to heat their house properly over the past year. In a survey conducted in the poorer eastern areas of the country, three quarters said they had to make cuts in their spending on consumer items and leisure time activities. One respondent, 46-year-old Karina from the state of Thuringia, said: ‘Food…petrol and energy: everything has become so expensive that I have nothing left at the end of the month. There was a time when I could go out sometimes, or go to the cinema. Such extras are no longer possible.’
One could argue, as Scholz has, that these problems have nothing to do with his politics. After all, the UK’s annual inflation rate of 4.6 per cent in October was even higher than Germany’s 3 per cent, as were Spain’s (3.5 per cent) and France’s (4.5 per cent). But many Germans are deeply unhappy with the way Scholz has handled these crises. Only around a quarter think he is fit to be chancellor, down from over 60 per cent when he took office in December 2021.
Recent scandals and spectacular failings of his government have cemented the public’s impression of incompetence. This year, there have been further investigations into his alleged connections to a tax fraud scheme that happened when he was mayor of Hamburg (Scholz denies any wrongdoing). Last month, a bombshell ruling by the constitutional court declared the creative accounting of his administration illegal, blowing a €60 billion (£52 billion) hole in public finances and an even bigger one in what remained of Scholz’s reputation as a crisis chancellor.
But it’s not just Scholz’s apparent lack of competence that has irked many German voters this year. What’s worse is that he doesn’t appear to care about the increasing despair in his country. Naturally aloof, his mannerisms and rhetoric sometimes drift into outright dismissiveness. Challenged recently on the fact that house prices are out of reach for many young Germans today, he responded with a piece of patronising advice: ‘Ask your parents: What interest rates did you build your houses with? Much higher ones. Back then people saved up.’ The accusation that young Germans lack the fiscal discipline of previous generations is unlikely to have inspired such voters, nearly three quarters of whom worry about not being able to find affordable housing, according to a recent survey.
Faced with a chancellor who won’t, and can’t, address their concerns, Germans are now turning their backs on Scholz and his party. Currently only 15 per cent would vote for his centre-left Social Democrats (SPD). That marks a 10 point-drop in support from the last election and the lowest result in the SPD’s post-war history by some margin.
One would think that such catastrophic loss of confidence would lead to serious soul-searching by Scholz or, failing that, within the SPD, which still thinks of itself as one of Germany’s main political parties. But there is no sign of any such critical reflection. At their party conference earlier this month, Scholz received a long standing ovation from the 600 delegates before he had even said a word. Once he had delivered his speech, praising a party-internal unity ‘we have rarely achieved so well,’ Saskia Esken, a co-leader of the SPD, told him ‘you have warmed our hearts.’
The so-called Seeheim Circle, a powerful parliamentary faction of the SPD, also seems unfazed by the fact that the party might lose half of its seats. ‘We have trust,’ said their spokesman Dirk Wiese as he fell back on a somewhat laboured football analogy, explaining that they were currently at the end of the first half but ‘the final whistle is blown at the end.’
Such staggering complacency not only risks the standing of Germany’s oldest party but also the country’s political stability. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is now polling as the second most popular party with over a fifth of the electorate behind it. As it stands, they are also set to win three state elections in eastern Germany next year. In Thuringia, where disaffection with the government is particularly strong, they might even win outright, which would put Björn Höcke, who is considered a right-wing extremist by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, in charge.
Scholz’s only nod to this danger at the party conference was a reference to the SPD’s anti-fascist history (many members had opposed the Nazis in the 1920s and 1930s, putting themselves in mortal danger). But he took no responsibility for the enormous loss of confidence in himself and his party, nor did he suggest a change of course. Instead, the delegates were told to relay a message of ‘optimism’ to voters to let them know that ‘we are there for you.’ It seems Germany is in for another hackneyed football allusion in a repeat of Scholz’s favourite slogan: ‘You’ll never walk alone’ – a phrase so empty that it drew laughter when he last quoted it to the German parliament.
Germans are usually a patient bunch when it comes to their post-war chancellors. There have only been nine since the Second World War, two of them serving 16 years in a row: Angela Merkel and her former mentor Helmut Kohl. With a history of deeply destructive political chaos, Germans are apt to stick with the devil they know. But relying on the political risk-aversion of the German public is a risky strategy for Scholz and the SPD to take to try and get through the next two years. They are right, the final whistle will come in 2025. But by then, many of Germany’s angry spectators may have already stormed out of the stadium.
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