He Convinced Voters He Would Be Like Merkel. But Who Is Olaf Scholz?

BERLIN — Olaf Scholz succeeded in his campaign to become the next chancellor of Germany primarily by convincing voters that he would be very much like the towering and long-serving figure he will replace: Angela Merkel.

Terse, well-briefed and abstaining from any gesture of triumph, Mr. Scholz not only sounded like the outgoing chancellor, he perfected the art of embodying her aura of stability and calm to the point of holding his hands together in her signature diamond shape.

“He’s like a soccer player who studied videos of another player and changed his game,” said Robin Alexander, a long-term political observer of both Ms. Merkel and Mr. Scholz. “From temperament and political style all the way down to facial expression Scholz now channels Merkel. If Scholz was a woman he would wear pantsuits.”

As Mr. Scholz unveiled his new government on Wednesday and prepares to take office next month, one question for Germany and for the whole of Europe and the world is: Can he deliver and fill Ms. Merkel’s very big shoes?

Rarely has a German leader come into office with so many burning crises.

As soon as he is sworn in as chancellor in early December, Mr. Scholz will have to deal with a surging pandemic, tensions at the Polish-Belarussian border, a Russian president mobilizing troops on Ukraine’s eastern border, a more confrontational China and a less dependable United States.

“The pressure is huge,” said Jana Puglierin of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “The new government is taking office in a situation that has been heating up on multiple fronts. And when it comes to foreign policy, Olaf Scholz remains a bit of an enigma.”

Indeed, which Olaf Scholz will show up as chancellor in two weeks is a matter of intense speculation. A lifelong Social Democrat, Mr. Scholz, 63, has been a familiar face in German politics for more than two decades and served in two of Ms. Merkel’s governments, most recently as her finance minister.

But he has also been something of a political chameleon, a pragmatic politician who straddles left and right so easily it is sometimes hard to know where he stands.

Born in Osnabrück, northern Germany, Mr. Scholz grew up in Hamburg, the city he would later run as mayor. His grandfather was a railway man, his parents worked in textiles. He and his brothers were the first in his family to go to university.

He was still in high school when he joined the Social Democrats. A fiery young Socialist, he spent a decade as a labor lawyer defending workers threatened by factory closures. Then, as secretary-general of his party under the last center-left administration of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, he defended painful labor market reforms with a machine-like efficiency that earned him the nickname “Scholzo-mat.”

When he was first elected into Parliament he sat with the left wing of his party. Today he is considered to be to the right of much of its base — not unlike President Biden in the United States, with whom he is sometimes compared.

But like with Biden, some see some leftist reflexes.

Mr. Scholz lost his party’s leadership contest to a pair of leftists two years ago, but surprised and impressed some of his fiercest critics in his own party when he pulled out a “bazooka” of hundreds of billions of euros in state aid to help struggling workers and businesses during the pandemic.

Some hope that this— and his election campaign theme centered on respect for the working classes — was proof that the youthful idealist who mellowed into a post-ideological centrist might be turning more radical again in his 60s.

“The bazooka was a big moment,” said Kevin Kühnert, an outspoken left-winger and one of the Social Democrats’ deputy leaders. “It was the belated peace with his party. And it was the beginning of a deeper social transformation he’s hoping for.”

Mr. Scholz, who reportedly lost 12 kilograms, about 26 pounds, and stopped drinking alcohol ahead of the election, has long been underestimated. He has always played a long game. His ambition to become chancellor dates back to 2011, according to a close ally.

Even political opponents speak admiringly of his political instinct, his stamina and quiet self belief. Three years ago, when his party’s approval ratings were hovering near record lows, he told The New York Times that the Social Democrats would win the next election.

Like Ms. Merkel, he has a reputation for being a safe pair of hands and a decent person with a bipartisan aura.

“Merkel is beyond party-politics, she is the voice of reason,” said Mr. Alexander, who wrote a best-selling book on the end of the Merkel era. “Being the center of politics as a person, that’s what Merkel did so masterfully and that’s what Scholz is aiming for.”

That political flexibility may now make him the perfect leader to tackle what may be his abiding challenge as chancellor — keeping the peace in an unusual and untested three-way coalition with two ideologically divergent parties: the progressive Greens, who want to spend 50 billion euros, or about $56 billion, on a green transition, and the pro-market Free Democrats, who will control the finance ministry and with it the purse strings.

But it also runs the risk of satisfying no one. Just how absorbed Mr. Scholz gets in having to balance conflicting demands at home, observers say, could affect his ability to push through his government’s ambitious agenda to prepare Germany for a carbon-neutral future and a digital age.

It will also determine how large a role Germany can play abroad. If Mr. Scholz gets too distracted by internal tensions, Europe and the world are bound to feel the loss of Ms. Merkel’s leadership, analysts predict.

But if it goes smoothly, Mr. Scholz’ Germany could turn out to be a pivotal power for European cohesion, for more trans-Atlantic unity on fighting climate change and for confronting strategic competitors like China and Russia, and, some hope, for a revival of social democracy in different parts of the world.

Foreign policy was barely discussed in the election campaign but along with the pandemic it might well end up dominating the first months of the new administration. Germany is taking over thepresidency of the Group of 7 in January and Mr. Scholz will immediately have the spotlight on him on a host of pressing international questions.

He has a seeming center-left ally in President Biden. Not since the second term of former President Bill Clinton have both the White House and the German chancellery been in the hands of center-left leaders.

But no one in Berlin is relying too much on Washington.

“We don’t know how dependable the Biden administration is and we don’t know how long it will be in power,” said Ms. Puglierin of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

One of Mr. Scholz’ advisers put it more bluntly: “Biden is America First, just more polite.”

As a result, Mr. Scholz will focus his energy on strengthening the European Union, his advisers say. His first foreign visit will be to President Emmanuel Macron in France, who faces his own difficult election campaign next year. Supporting Mr. Macron, who is taking over the European Union’s rotating presidency in January, is one goal.

“We will talk a lot more about European sovereignty. We will sound more French. But in reality it will be hard to turn that into real policy,” Ms. Puglierin said.

Few analysts expect the new chancellor to change course significantly from Ms. Merkel, who took him along to her last Group of 20 meeting last month and introduced him to a number of world leaders, including President Biden.

“Don’t expect too much change,”Nils Schmid, foreign policy spokesman of the Social Democrats, said last weekend.

To those of Germany’s allies who are hoping for a much more robust stance on China and Russia and an increase in military spending that promise of continuity may be only partly reassuring.

But with so many fires burning on the international stage and some structural geopolitical shifts underway, circumstances — and his more hawkish coalition partners — might force the new chancellor’s hand, said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff of the German Marshall Fund.

One of the first tests Mr. Scholz will face is how to deal with Poland, which has violated some of the democratic principles of E.U. membership but is also under pressure from neighboring Belarus, a Russian ally that has been funneling migrants to the Polish border in an apparent attempt to destabilize the bloc.

Mr. Scholz’ Social Democrats are traditionally dovish on Russia, supporting projects like the divisive Nordstream II gas pipeline. But if Moscow launches another offensive in Ukraine, it would be another significant test.

On China, the picture is more complicated.

The Social Democrats have signaled that Mr. Scholz would not turn hawkish overnight and close ranks with the United States.

“If you look at Merkel’s China policy, I think that Olaf Scholz will be more similar to this than U.S. policy toward China,” Lars Klingbeil, secretary-general of the Social Democrats and a close ally of Mr. Scholz said last month.

But as Beijing has become more confrontational and German industry more outspoken about its dependency on the Chinese market, Germany’s China policy is ripe for evolving from the mercantilist soft touch of the Merkel era, analysts say.

“Scholz has clout and he will gain further clout in office,” said Holger Schmieding, chief economist of Berenberg Bank. “He has the potential to be a strong leader with international standing — as long as he keeps his coalition together.”