German Finance Minister Scholz enters race for SPD leadership

German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz will run for the leadership of the Social Democrats (SPD), a spokeswoman said on Friday. The party’s popularity has sunk since it entered a coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives.

A successful bid by Scholz to lead the SPD would bring more stability to Merkel’s shaky right-left coalition, which the SPD entered reluctantly last year after a 2017 election, Reuters said.

“I’m willing to run if you want me to,” Der Spiegel magazine cited Scholz as telling the SPD’s three interim leaders in a phone call. It said none of them opposed his offer.

Scholz is the most high-profile candidate to join the race. A recent poll found he was the second favorite politician among Germans to become the next chancellor.