After Merkel: Scholz looks like a shoo-in as next chancellor

However the electoral arithmetic works out, it will likely lead to much commotion but not much change in keeping with the sane and undramatic politics of Germany.

Thanks mostly to the under-performance of his opponents, Olaf Scholz has emerged over the past four months as the odds-on favourite as successor to Angela Merkel, pictured, as German chancellor, writes Gwynne Dyer.Photograph courtesy of Flickr

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

September 23, 2021

LONDON, U.K.—Last January Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) were ahead in the German opinion polls by 15 points. She was stepping down after 16 years as chancellor (prime minister), but she was still by far the most tru...

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