Olaf Scholz: 'Robotic' Social Democrat Within Grasp Of Merkel's Job

Olaf Scholz, the centre-left Social Democrat (SPD) candidate to succeed Angela Merkel, is often described as boring, but could be on the verge of a sensational upset after Sunday's election. With polls showing the SPD narrowly ahead of Angela Merkel's CDU-CSU conservative alliance, Scholz may have achieved something many would have thought impossible just a year ago. His SPD scored just 20.5 percent in Germany's last election in 2017 and has had a difficult few years in coalition with the CDU-CSU, but looks on course to win at least 25 percent of the vote this time. "It's going to be a long election night, that's for sure," Scholz said after the first estimates were released. "But this is certain: that many citizens have put their crosses next to the SPD because they want there to be a change in government and also because they want the next chancellor to be called Olaf Scholz."