Germany’s Scholz confident of turning round his struggling party’s fortunes in run for a 2nd term

BERLIN (AP) - Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday he is confident of turning around his struggling center-left party’s fortunes and will run for a second term as Germany’s leader in an election expected next year, dismissing a suggestion that he could emulate U.S. President Joe Biden and make way for someone else.

Scholz’s governing coalition, which took office at the end of 2021, set out to modernize Germany but has gained a reputation for constant discord and poor communication. All three parties in the alliance have seen their support decline.

In the European Parliament election last month, the chancellor’s Social Democrats finished third with only 13.9% of the vote, their worst post-World War II showing in a nationwide election. That’s far below the 25.7% support with which they narrowly won Germany’s last national election in 2021.

The sag in support is an "incentive” to do better, and “it is clear to me that we must convince people with our actions … and with clarity," Scholz said at his annual summer news conference.

A survey of members of his Social Democrats, or SPD, published Monday suggested only one-third thought he should run for chancellor again in the next election.

Scholz declined to comment on that and dismissed a question as to whether he might follow Biden’s example. "No, the SPD is a very united party; we are all firmly determined to go into the next election campaign together and to win it and I, as chancellor, will run to become chancellor again," he said.

He was largely tightlipped on the U.S. presidential election. Germany’s last government, in which Scholz was vice chancellor, had sometimes-tense relations with the administration of Donald Trump, now the Republican nominee again.

"I will work well with any government in the U.S. - that is my job, that is the job of Germany and Europe. We place a great deal of value on the trans-Atlantic relationship," he said. He added that "this is not just a transactional question that is about usefulness," but a matter of shared values such as the rule of law, democracy and freedom.

Asked about his view of the Democratic hopeful, Vice President Kamala Harris, Scholz said that he’s met her on several occasions and sees her as "a competent and experienced politician who knows exactly what she’s doing and has very clear ideas about the role of her country."