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| - Germany's centre-left Social Democrats said Monday they have nominated Finance Minister Olaf Scholz to lead them in the race to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor in next year's federal election. "Now it's out: Olaf Scholz is our chancellor candidate," party chiefs Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans said on Twitter. "We have seen Olaf Scholz as a reliable and team-oriented partner who can and wants to fight for social democratic politics for this country and who shares with us the vision of a just society," they said. Scholz, also the vice chancellor of Germany, said he was "looking forward to a great, fair and successful election campaign as part of a strong team". The 62-year-old former mayor of Hamburg is the leading member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Merkel's left-right coalition. Although he lost a vote for the party's leadership against Esken and Walter-Borjans last year, he has risen in popularity in recent months. Buoyed by his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, Scholz is now the SPD's most popular politician, according to national pols. However, he has recently come under pressure over the collapse of Wirecard, after it emerged that he was told as early as February 2019 of suspicions of misconduct. Scholz faces an uphill task with polls showing his party lagging the Greens at around 15 percent, while Merkel's centre-right CDU-CSU are ahead on about 38 percent. The news comes a day after Walter-Borjans told Die Zeit newspaper the SPD shouldn't rule out a coalition with the left-wing Die Linke party. The CDU is going through their own candidature process as Merkel has said she will not seek re-election as chancellor during the next polls, to be held between August and October 2021. edf/hmn/bp
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