No, he has not developed into a people-catcher like Klaus Wowereit even after the end of his chancellorship. After the former entertained the theater audience of the Berlin "Porcupines" in the summer as the debut guest of the podcast "Elefantenrunde", former Chancellor Olaf Scholz now made a decidedly sober appearance at the second live event. “They are still the same as before,” said moderator Hajo Schumacher after just a few minutes.
Did he join fellow Social Democrats like Sigmar Gabriel or Karl Lauterbach, who had positioned themselves in an open letter against a possible red-green-red alliance in Berlin? “I cut back a bit on signing letters,” replied Scholz. "Otherwise - if I can say this from having been involved in politics for many years - it is quite easy to give advice to others if you are not involved. They have a hard enough time and will think carefully about what they want to do."
Schumacher and his co-host Frank Stauss were still interested in whether the ex-chancellor preferred red-green-red or a Kenya coalition led by the CDU. “I would rather be governed by a social democratic mayor,” he immediately rejected both options. When Wowereit was still in power in Berlin, the “Berliner Zeitung” once asked him whether he was confident of taking on the position. "And my answer was always: No, it's a completely different world. It's not just Berlin air, but it's different than a Hanseatic city. And you shouldn't come from Hamburg and say: I know better."
With regard to Berlin's housing shortage, Scholz referred to building law. “Without new districts on greenfield sites,” there will never be enough living space in the capital. “Is Tempelhofer Feld a green meadow for you?” asked Schumacher. “Yes,” replied the SPD politician briefly. "I believe that we have to say goodbye to the illusion that our cities are densely built up. Back then, as a Hamburger, I could always say that Hamburg can also be accommodated in the area of Berlin - with half the number of inhabitants."
Singapore has a smaller area than Berlin. However, six million people lived there. The even smaller South Korean capital Seoul could accommodate almost ten million people. “And that’s why the idea that you couldn’t accommodate 100, 200 or 300,000 additional apartments in this city and it wouldn’t look any tighter than it does today is wrong.” But building law is too complicated for that. "The lawyers - I say this as a lawyer - had been given too much power over the engineers. That's a problem. And that means it takes forever."
Scholz attributed the dissatisfaction that was expressed in the election to the Berlin House of Representatives and last year's mayoral election in New York to elitist arrogance. “All the many who, like us, have benefited from the fact that – unlike their parents – they have acquired very extensive educational qualifications, many of them now see themselves as something better and look down on the others,” complained the former Chancellor. “And this division in society is, in my view, one of the very, very big challenges of our modern times.”
The success of the right-wing populist parties can only be reversed “if we once again ensure that we meet as equals and that someone sitting in a restaurant does not feel like they are better than those who produce the food there.” Neither Brexit nor the electoral successes of Nigel Farage or Marine Le Pen could be explained without the existing inappropriate behavior between social groups.
Scholz viewed the recent midterm elections in the United States as a positive counter-development, in which people voted “against big money,” as Schumacher noted. “This is very reassuring and, by the way, a good sign for democracy,” explained the former finance minister. He “always fooled” US politicians a bit when he told them that he had become Chancellor with a campaign budget of 15 million euros. “The total sum of a national presidential election campaign there has now exceeded one billion – per candidate.”
Whether the US midterms, the election results in Brazil, Hungary and Serbia as well as the popularity of Andy Burnham in Great Britain are an expression of an “international vibe shift” and whether the “autocrat phase” is over? “First of all, this is a very clear message to all the cynics who predicted the end of democracy and all sorts of things,” emphasized Scholz. "You were wrong. Democracy is not an event that was imposed on the citizens from above."
“Trumpism” promised that jobs can be created “with tariff policy and hating the right people.” “No right-wing, populist party anywhere in the world can deliver economically what those who are under pressure are hoping for,” said Scholz. “And that’s why there’s always the danger that when it’s her turn, she won’t solve the problems but will come up with populist activities or deterioration of democracy in order to stay in power.” The non-populist parties therefore have a primary task: “We have to develop a concept that justifies optimism.”
