Live ticker for the traffic lights being turned off: Scholz is basically ready for a vote of confidence before Christmas

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) has called on his party to unite in view of the upcoming federal election. In order to be successful in the election, he recommends a clear stance on security issues and a Focus on industrial and economic policy. “It is essential for the SPD, for its original core electorate,” Pistorius told the German Press Agency in Berlin.

“It goes without saying that the current poll numbers don't make anyone in the SPD happy. I'm not happy with 15 or 16 percent either. We have to analyze what the cause is,” said Pistorius in the dpa interview that took place shortly before the traffic light coalition collapsed. There is more than one reason for this.

Pistorius assumes that there is more in it for the SPD. However, the federal election in 2021 showed that election surveys are not elections. “For months we were at 15 percent in surveys. In the end we were the clear election winners. Or in 2005: Back then we reduced a 20 percentage point gap to the Union to one percentage point within three months,” said Pistorius. The mood until the next one The federal election could still change significantly.

Pistorius said: “I believe we can achieve a result like 2021 again. But for this we have to reach up to the ceiling. We have to be clear about what we want and act as a united party.”

In response to a question he expresses conviction: “Yes, you can win back some of the voters from the AfD – with a serious, pragmatic industrial and economic policy that is based on reality.” Pistorius welcomes the fact that Lars Klingbeil and Olaf Scholz “address this issue very clearly”.

According to a Forsa survey on Friday, the majority of Germans would like Pistorius to be the SPD candidate for chancellor in the early elections (57 percent). In the survey, however, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (also SPD) only got 13 percent.

Pistorius would also be in a future government happy to be defense minister again, “Because I still have a lot planned.” “We are restructuring the Bundeswehr so ​​that it can meet the requirements of the new threat situation in Europe,” he said. “Despite all the challenges, I can rely on a strong team with whom I have built up a very good relationship.”