Olaf Scholz has become Federal Chancellor – but now he has to be too.

He has been in office for a good sixty days, long enough to disappoint the first few.

Since December, the number of Germans who think Scholz is doing a good job has fallen sharply – by half or just a third, depending on the survey.

If there were a general election next Sunday, the SPD would be behind the CDU again, several institutes have reported in the past few days.

There must be reasons for this.

Konrad Schuller

Political correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper in Berlin.

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One is that high expectations are more likely to be disappointed than exceeded.

Another that the scenery in front of which Scholz is seen has changed.

For example, he can no longer benefit from the fact that political competition is dismantling itself.

The Union, recently at odds over Laschet's candidacy for chancellor, has pulled itself together.

Added to this is the irritability of the Germans in the pandemic.

February is already the worst month of the year.

Now he drags himself into the argument about vaccination and longed-for relaxation for what feels like a whole winter.

The number of those who consider the measures to be excessive is higher than ever.

And then the crisis with Russia.

Also the high prices.

For energy, but also for everything else.

There are no effective levers to change course.

Scholz needs time.

That used to be easier too.

Scholz moves from Webex meeting to Zoom conference.

Many appointments that would have given nice pictures in other times are taking place in the depths of the digital.

Bad luck for the new chancellor.

But he has to go through with it.

After all, he has announced that he will start where others give up.

"Scholz will tackle it," it was said during the election campaign.

And when the SPD board met a year ago to talk about the future, Scholz promised leadership at its finest.

The future, he explained pithy at the time, arises from “leadership”, from a “central political leadership performance”.

He, the chancellor, has to do that.

He determines the guidelines of government policy.

Scholz has to discuss where he actually wants to tackle

But there are still the Greens and the FDP.

His coalition partners.

Scholz has to take them with him.

In this way, “leadership” has become “democratic leadership”;

Scholz praised his style in the first government survey in January.

That was supposed to sound statesmanlike, but it seemed unintentionally funny, as if leading democratically in a democracy was not a matter of course.

The wording glossed over the fact that Scholz does not have a secure majority in his own coalition for the general vaccination he advocates.

So he has to discuss where he actually wants to tackle.

But Scholz is tough.

He works according to the motto: never complain, never explain.

Like the queen.

And derived from this: never be offended, never be hysterical.

On the one hand, this refers to bad press.

Scholz became Chancellor, although many journalists had written that he would never become Chancellor.

He still remembers that.

The fact that it is now being said that he is not leading decisively enough falls into the same category for him.

Bad polls, like good ones, are snapshots.

In addition, Scholz is reluctant to publicly explain how exactly he wants to achieve his goals.

In his opinion, this reduces the likelihood of actually achieving them.

The idea is: There are fifty possible solutions, and you should cut off as few as possible.

Because that way you remain more flexible, depending on which path the other person takes.