Scholz’s popularity sinks over handling of Ukraine invasion
THE German chancellor has seen his approval rating sink in the wake of his handling of the Ukraine crisis.
Olaf Scholz was this week overtaken in the opinion polls by the charismatic leaders of his coalition partner, the Green Party.
Following disastrous regional election results for Mr Scholz’s Social Democrats, some in Berlin are now describing Robert Habeck, the Green vice-chancellor, as “a better chancellor”.
Mr Scholz has plummeted to fifth place among cabinet members in the polls, with an approval rating of minus 35.
Annalena Baerbock, the foreign minister and leader of the Green Party, is second, with a rating of plus 10, while Mr Habeck, the business and climate minister, has soared to first place with plus 25.
“His party is plummeting, but the chancellor feels that he has done everything right. Doubts and questions rain down on him, but Olaf simply sits tight,” Der Spiegel magazine commented this week.
Mr Scholz has faced accusations of being weak and indecisive after he blocked heavy weapons deliveries to Ukraine only to bow to public pressure in a reluctant U-turn.
He has also been accused of misleading the public after it emerged the promised weapons have still not been delivered. “What sort of a double game are you playing?” Friedrich Merz, the opposition leader, taunted him this week.
It was very different at the start of the war. Mr Scholz announced a “turning point” in German foreign policy, scrapped the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and pledged €100 billion (£84 billion) in new defence spending.
But since then he has frustrated Western allies and the German public alike with his vacillation over arms deliveries and a Russian oil embargo.
He has refused to follow in the footsteps of Boris Johnson and other world leaders by visiting Kyiv.
“I’m not going to join a bunch of people who dash in and out for a photo op,” he snapped when challenged in parliament over his refusal.
“What ‘bunch of people’?” Mr Merz replied. “European heads of government? Nancy Pelosi? Or your own foreign minister?”
Ms Baerbock visited Kyiv on May 10. Her stock has risen as Mr Scholz’s has fallen, with she and Mr Habeck seen as the right leaders for the crisis.
Mr Habeck has led efforts to wean Germany off Russian fuel, visiting Qatar to make deals for new gas supplies.
Mr Habeck’s popularity “has a lot to do with his ability to explain things”, Spiegel wrote this week.
In contrast, Stuttgartbased political scientist Oscar W Gabriel told the magazine that Mr Scholz’s communication policy is “a disaster”.