Germans like to go for ‘Mr Dependable’ Scholz

The Social Democrats(SPD)and their candidate Olaf Scholz narrowly won last Sunday’s vote on 25.7 per cent, with Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats coming a close second with a vote-share of 24.1 per cent. As Merkel bows out after reigning 16 years as a colossus over Germany, her popularity it seems has not translated into popularity for her party the CDU or her chosen successor Armin Laschet.

The result leaves the SPD in the lead when it comes to forming the next government, but Armin Laschet has also announced his plans to attempt to form the next government. Both the SPD and CDU can actually form a coalition government but it depends on their ability to persuade the environment-friendly Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats to enter into an alliance with them.

And since the election results have been announced more and more Germans are reacting favourably to Scholz and giving a thumbs-down to Laschet. The conservative politician it seems suffer from a “lack of likeability syndrome´, something that Barack Obama talked about during his 2008 campaign when he gave his then-Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton the back-handed compliment that she was likeable enough.

One per cent divides the SPD from the CDU but Laschet’s lack of charisma and persona means that the CDU can look forward to four years of opposition as Germans favour “Mr Dependable “Scholz as Chancellor. His coalition combination of Social Democrats(red), FDP (represented by the colour yellow) and Greens(the colour green) also known as the Ampel(traffic light) coalition has found more of an acceptance among the public than the Jamaica coalition that Laschet and the CDU(colour black) in combination with the Greens and Liberals are promising.

So reggae beats and Jamaica flag are fun but traffic light is what the Germans would be getting for a government if the Germans could have a choice of the coalition, 59 per cent of Germans want an Ampel coalition and only 24 per cent want a coalition led by Laschet.

Not that Scholz would have it easy if he can form a government. The challenges facing the incoming government are many, inflation has been creeping up the past months, the EU is not in the best of health and migration continues to be a sensitive topic especially in the east and not to forget the pandemic which seems to have been on a summer break but has to be seen hat the autumn brings.

Gentrification and inflation mean that rental prices are constantly increasing in big cities including Berlin. Last week Berliners backed one of the continent’s most radical responses to rising rents. They voted to seize property from mega landlords Many Berliners live in apartments that are owned by mega landlords based in Scandinavia, China and other countries.

Locals now support expropriation with 56% per cent in favour of seizing property. Landlords who have more than 3,000 units run the risk of their apartments getting seized. The move has popular support but remains to be seen if the incoming local state government would take such a radical step.