Federal election 2021: Now the SPD is putting everything on the Scholz card

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There is only a brief disagreement.

Comrade Franziska Drohsel from Berlin is promoting an even more ambitious rent policy than the SPD has already committed to.

But the proposal to give the federal states more options for limiting rents does not go through.

Ex-Juso boss and current party vice Kevin Kühnert himself clears him. You have to think more deeply about this first, he says in his speech. There should be no doubt about the candidate or the program. In the end, approval is huge for both of them.

The SPD is not arguing at this party congress.

She rallies around Olaf Scholz.

The finance minister, who has been nominated as candidate for chancellor by the SPD leaders for nine months, will be officially chosen by the 600 delegates this Sunday.

The jubilation is not as great as with Martin Schulz, who received 100 percent of the votes in the 2017 election as party leader - which is also due to the fact that the delegates meet almost exclusively digitally due to the pandemic.

But the support is clear: In the end, 96 percent vote for the Vice Chancellor, who was once rather controversial in parts of the party.

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In doing so, the Social Democrats are treading the only path that leaves them in an almost hopeless situation.

Two candidates for the Chancellery have long played themselves at the center of the public debate.

The green candidate Annalena Baerbock and the Union man Armin Laschet (CDU), who are not so affected by the internal trench warfare that his party comes close to the SPD in polls.

The SPD hardly plays a role in the question, it has remained between 14 and 16 percent for months.

Scholz has to show that he can also campaign

In contrast to Olaf Scholz, who, as Vice Chancellor, has a comparatively high approval rating. Social Democrats have therefore been saying for months that one must rely primarily on him and his experience in government in the election campaign. Accordingly, Secretary General Lars Klingbeil tailored the party conference to suit him. But there is also a burden on Scholz. From Sunday he will have to show that he can not only do solid government work, but can also campaign for election in the federal government.

In a black suit and white shirt, the candidate for chancellor appears as a “highlight” at the very end of the party congress, as previously announced.

In a nearly 30-minute speech, he fans out his four future missions, which he presented at the beginning of the year: modern climate policy and mobility, faster digitization, better health policy.

He speaks of higher minimum wages, investments, more government.

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The Chancellor candidate spoke early on about the corona pandemic, which he describes as a "historic turning point", not only in view of the high number of deaths.

But also with a view to the displeasure in the population.

“A lot of trust has been destroyed,” he says.

Even “sensible” and “able” people were disappointed that “politics and administration often did not function well enough in this pandemic”.

Much was too bureaucratic, too slow, too opaque and contradictory.

One must now draw the "correct" conclusions from this: with an energetic government that will bring the country forward.

It is a speech that repeatedly aims at the narrative that the SPD has a specific mission for the next ten years - in contrast to its political opponents.

Scholz attacked both the Union and the Greens: "Another government led by the CDU and CSU would be a risk to prosperity and jobs - a location risk for our country," he says.

But there is also another extreme.

"Some people think that big goals alone are enough to win the future."

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The chancellor candidate is also reacting to criticism from within the party that the election campaign in the SPD has been too tame so far. One must attack the political opponents much harder, the chairman of the Rhineland-Palatinate state association, Roger Lewentz, had recently indicated. On Sunday, the Vice Chancellor made his claim clear to want to take up the substantive battle with the political opponent more intensely.

His plan is detailed, for example when it comes to the question of how exactly the climate turnaround should succeed and at the same time economic innovation. But perhaps too detailed for a campaign speech. He still has to show whether he can inspire a crowd. Concerns that the candidate might not be close to the people to master the long race to catch up have been rejected by comrades in recent days with a view to Hamburg. There Scholz once won an absolute majority for the Social Democrats in 2011 from the opposition. However, the SPD was not as far behind there as in the federal government.

In any case, criticism that the course is not going far enough hardly sprouts on Sunday.

On the contrary.

Lars Klingbeil had already given the decisive vocabulary beforehand.

"It takes experience, it takes leadership, it takes competence, it takes strength, it takes Olaf Scholz," he said.

They keep falling throughout the day.

Much more often than “departure”, “renewal” or “change”.

In the Willy-Brandt-Haus, people rely on the voters to appreciate the candidate's calm government work in the end - and not the sometimes cloudy-sounding promises made by a candidate for Chancellor Baerbock.

Even the new Juso boss and Kühnert successor Jessica Rosenthal praises the work of the SPD ministers in the cabinet so far, including the so-called catch-up package that the government has launched for children and young people to cushion the consequences of the pandemic.

She calls for even more extensive steps in some areas - "free" local transport for everyone under the age of 18 - but that puts her close to the party line.

"We see a burned empty, completely divided union"

In the polls, the Social Democrats are well behind the Greens and the Union, and the party is a long way from the Chancellery.

SPD general secretary Lars Klingbeil believes in a chancellor Olaf Scholz.

A “catch-up race” is to be started at the digital party congress.

Source: WELT / Achim Unser

Party vice Serpil Midyatli goes into raptures when she reports in her speech by Scholz who did so much for family policy.

The harmony at this party congress seems authentic.

The lesson from the past few years is that you should not go into this election unanimously.

Issues that had caused a lot of controversy were cleared away.

The reintroduction of the wealth tax has already been agreed, as well as a move away from Hartz IV. Debates that recently caused a brief stir have been silently revised in the past few weeks.

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Including climate policy. In its proposal for the election manifesto, the party executive had spoken out in favor of climate neutrality by 2050. After the Federal Constitutional Court had warned a more ambitious pace the week before last, the party leadership changed the application again. On Sunday they agreed on climate neutrality by 2045.

And the voices in dispute have also become quieter in recent weeks. Even party leader Saskia Esken, otherwise not at a loss for his own contributions, held back. The identity policy debate about Wolfgang Thierse, which Esken had initiated together with Kühnert, was quickly canceled in the Willy Brandt House. To the relief of many comrades. It is good that the party leadership is now holding back more, said one elected representative in the run-up to the party congress. Because some MPs are now also worried about their re-election.