Scholz is clear to seek a 2nd term as German leader after defense minister rules out a run

BERLIN -- Germany's popular defense minister has taken himself out of contention to become the country's next leader, clearing the way for Chancellor Olaf Scholz to seek a second term in an early election after a week of arguments that exposed deep divisions in his struggling party.

Scholz and leaders of his center-left Social Democrats vowed Friday to fight their way back from a wide poll deficit ahead of the election, expected to take place Feb. 23. They insisted that the chancellor's three years in power have brought successes and that the Social Democrats weren't responsible for the infighting that pushed his unpopular three-party coalition government to collapse this month.

But a week of very public arguments about who should lead the fightback is widely viewed as having damaged the party further.

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in a video Thursday night that he has informed the party leadership he is “not available for a candidacy for the office of chancellor.” He said that “Olaf Scholz is a strong chancellor and he is the right candidate for chancellor.”

Rather than building momentum from Scholz's firing of his finance minister two weeks ago, which brought down the coalition, party members spent days airing public doubts about the chancellor.

The Social Democrats' rivals already determined who will lead their campaigns. The main opposition center-right Union bloc, which leads in polls, nominated Friedrich Merz as its challenger in September. Scholz’s remaining coalition partners, the Greens, named Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck to head their challenge on Sunday.

While Scholz has made clear for months that he intends to run for a second term and his party's leadership had made clear that it backed him, the lack of a formal nomination created space for persistent speculation that the party might instead choose Pistorius, who enjoys much higher popularity.

On Monday, two influential lawmakers said Scholz’s “current standing is strongly linked" with the failed coalition, which collapsed in a dispute about how to revive Germany’s stagnant economy, and that they were hearing many compliments for Pistorius. Others weighed in for and against the chancellor, who was at the Group of 20 summit in Brazil as the debate swirled.

Pistorius repeatedly said he stands behind Scholz and gave no indication that he planned to run for chancellor, but also conspicuously didn't rule it out until Thursday. The discussion, he said in the video released by the Social Democrats' leadership, was damaging to the party.

“I did not initiate this discussion, I did not want it and I did not bring myself into discussion for anything,” he said. “We now have a joint responsibility to end this debate.”

The party leadership is expected to formally nominate Scholz as its candidate for chancellor on Monday.

“I know these have been hard days,” party co-leader Lars Klingbeil said Friday at a conference of local Social Democratic politicians in Berlin. “But if a party can fight, then it is the Social Democrats ... I want to win with you.”

Scholz said it had ultimately been necessary to put an end to his coalition government “because there had been too many arguments and too many discussions, which made it difficult to concentrate on the successes.”

Among those, he pointed to Germany's status as Ukraine's biggest military supplier in Europe, along with his often-criticized refusal to supply long-range Taurus cruise missiles over concerns of escalating the war with Russia. “Only with the Social Democrats will prudence come together with clear support for Ukraine,” he said.

The question of how to reinvigorate Germany's economy is likely to be central to the election campaign.

On Friday, official figures showed that the economy grew only 0.1% in the third quarter compared with the previous three-month period, down from the 0.2% originally reported.