SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz, in his own words, does not seek party leadership in the event of an election victory.
"No, I do not consider that necessary, nor do I intend to do that," said the current Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister on Sunday in the "Interview of the Week" on Deutschlandfunk.
The election of the party leadership is due at the next regular SPD party congress in December, around a quarter of a year after the general election.
CDU general secretary Paul Ziemiak interpreted the announcement as an indication that “the candidate for chancellor will not oppose the tight left-wing course of the SPD leadership”. The party chairmen Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans as well as the former Juso boss Kevin Kühnert have clear sympathies for red-red-green, "are already exploring the alliance," said Ziemiak. “The voters deserve clarity from Mr. Scholz: is he ruling out a coalition with the Left Party or not? In itself a simple question. "
Esken has already announced that it will keep the party chairmanship. "For me, I can say that I still have an agenda ahead of me," she told the Rheinische Post three weeks ago. The member of the Bundestag has been leading the SPD since December 2019 together with the former North Rhine-Westphalian Finance Minister Walter-Borjans. Previously, the two had prevailed in a membership decision as critics of the grand coalition - against Scholz and his co-candidate Klara Geywitz.