Germany, the three candidates for the chancellery

  • Germany on Sunday to vote, all possible coalitions

  • Germany, the numbers of the elections

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24 September 2021 In the federal elections in Germany, Sunday 26 September, there are three candidates for the chancellery for the first time. To the traditional challengers of the two large Cdu / Csu and Spd blocs is added that of the Greens, in view of the exit of Chancellor Angela Merkel who is not looking for a fifth term. It is the first time since 1949 that a candidate who tries to be re-elected is missing from the elections. The Social Democratic Party chose Olaf Scholz in August 2020; the Greens nominated Annalena Baerbock last March; the candidate of the twin parties of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union, Armin Laschet, emerged in April after an internal dispute.



Olaf Scholz

, a 63-year-old member of the SPD, specializing in labor law, is the current Minister of Finance and Deputy Chancellor, the latest in a series of top positions. A long-time politician, he has a sober and no-nonsense style, considered typical of his hometown of Hamburg, where he once worked as a lawyer. Unperturbed and unshakably sure of himself, however, he is not a master of rhetoric.



He entered the SPD as a high school student in 1975, was a member of the Bundestag from 1998 to 2001. For a turbulent period he was general secretary of the Social Democrats in the early 2000s (2002-2004), when then-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder faced dissent. Scholz first served in the national government from 2007 to 2009 as Minister of Labor in Chancellor Merkel's first government during the global financial crisis. He became mayor of Hamburg in 2011, remaining as mayor until 2018, when the city hosted the G20 summit in 2017, and is also remembered for downplaying the risk of clashes between demonstrators and police that took place. In 2018 he became Deputy Chancellor.



He ran for the leadership of the Social Democrats in 2019, but was rejected, defeated by Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken. As finance minister, he advocated the global minimum taxation of at least 15% for large companies and spearheaded efforts to stem the financial impact of the pandemic. In this latter role he ended up having wide visibility, above all thanks to the emergency funds in support of the economy and citizens. "This is the bazooka we need to make it," he said confidently, "we put all our weapons on the table to show that we are strong enough to overcome any economic hardship that this problem may bring." Words very far from the tones with which it was known in the past, linked toimage of bureaucrat-technocrat who earned him the nickname 'Scholzomat' given to him by Die Zeit (crasis of the surname and of the word Automat, ie machine).



Armin Laschet

, 60, has been president of the Land of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous in Germany, since 2017, when he got the better of a center-left government. Often his supporters point out that success, which took place in a stronghold of the left. Son of Walloon parents, with a miner father, he grew up in his native Aachen, on the border with Belgium and Holland. Growing up in the heart of the continent, he says, made him a proud European. He studied law in Bonn, then journalism, and for years worked for various newspapers while also involved in politics.



He had a political career marked by ups and downs, joining the CDU in the German Parliament in 1994 but losing his seat in 1998, when the SPD won the federal elections. From 1999 to 2005 he was a member of the European Parliament, with strongly pro-European positions, before becoming minister of his Land for the integration of migrants, the first role of its kind in the country. His positions were focused on the rights of migrants and policies of openness, so much so that he created various enemies, even within the bloc. He gained the leadership of his party in North Rhine-Westphalia on his second attempt, in 2012. His positions on migrants brought him closer to Chancellor Merkel especially during the migration crisis. Compared to her, it was later instead more decided on theeasing of restrictions related to Covid-19. In 2017 he was elected minister president of his Land.



He won the presidency of the CDU in January, defeating the conservative Friedrich Merz in a competition repeatedly postponed for the pandemic: a sign of continuity with the CDU line in Merkel's years, on pro-European and centrist positions. In April he also got the better of Bavarian governor Markus Soeder, who had better data in the polls, in claiming the nomination ahead of the race for the chancellery, after a long stalemate. Laschet offers a cheerful image of himself: he has often been seen wearing disguises on the occasion of Carnival and last year he won the 'Order against terrible seriousness' award, given to characters with a sense of humor. 



Annalena Baerbock

, 40, co-leader of the Greens with Robert Habeck, is the youngest challenger and the only one with no government experience. When she was appointed, she said: "I propose renewal, others promote the status quo." Considered a pragmatic voice of the party, it joined it in 2005, the year of arrival at Merkel's chancellery after which the line-up evolved into a progressive party, as well as an environmentalist, taking sides on issues ranging from civil rights to inclusion to Europeanism, with a strong base of support especially in the young and urban electorate.



Born in 1980, the same year in which her party was founded, initially a pro-peace and anti-nuclear protest movement, Baerbock grew up in Lower Saxony, where she and her parents took part in protests against nuclear weapons or nuclear waste as a child. She studied political science and international law in Hamburg and at the London School of Economics, a few years later she moved to Berlin and was then elected a member of the national parliament since 2013. She became the Greens spokesperson for climate change. An agonist athlete in her youth in jumping from the trampoline, she said that the sport taught her "the courage to push oneself beyond one's limits, to try new things".



In 2018 she came to the leadership of the party, traditionally shared between two co-leaders: the other is Habeck, considered the heir of the deputy chancellor and former Green minister Joschka Fischer. The two explained that they want to overcome the well-known internal conflict between 'Realos' (pragmatists) and 'Fundos' (fundamentalists), with the aim also of winning support from Merkel. With them, support for the Greens grew strongly, as the party came to the government of numerous Laender. In March, the duo decided by mutual agreement - in a very different style from the internal diatribes of the other parties - that Baerbock would run for the chancellery. However, at the beginning of the election campaign this year, Baerbock made some missteps: he had to correct a resume,belatedly declared party payments to parliamentary authorities, and was accused of copying parts of a new book (for which she denied any wrongdoing but claimed it should have been more precise in the list of sources). On his own inexperience, he replied in advance: "Democracy thrives on change, I represent change", "we have the task of bringing the best to the future".