- Chancellor Schmidt wants to run for the Bundestag
After over 20 years by the side of Olaf Scholz, Chief of Staff Wolfgang Schmidt will run for his own seat for the first time. The board of his former Hamburg SPD district association Eimsbüttel nominated the 53-year-old as the direct candidate for the Bundestag election in September next year, as district chairman Milan Pein told the German Press Agency. With his move to Berlin, Schmidt had left the Hamburg district association.
"I would like to win the direct mandate in Eimsbüttel for our SPD together with you in the next Bundestag election," Schmidt writes in a letter to his "dear comrades," which was obtained by the dpa. The "Hamburger Abendblatt" had previously reported on the plans.
"Wolfgang Schmidt is an experienced and highly competent politician, as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, former State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Finance, and Senator of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, with whom we believe we can win the constituency," said Pein to the dpa.
Schmidt is to reclaim the lost direct mandate of Niels Annen
Schmidt, born and raised in Hamburg, is considered Olaf Scholz's closest confidant. During Scholz's time as Mayor of Hamburg, he was a member of the Senate as State Councillor for foreign affairs. Later, he followed him to Berlin as State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Finance and took over the Chancellery after the change of government at the end of 2021.
"Many of us know Wolfgang Schmidt from his long-standing political work in Hamburg and Berlin - some even from his time as a member in Eimsbüttel," said Pein. Schmidt is not only an "active fighter for Social Democracy, but also a wise political head."
With the direct mandate in Eimsbüttel, Schmidt is to succeed Niels Annen, said Pein. The Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development had, however, failed at the last election against the former Hamburg Senator of Justice, Till Steffen of the Greens, who secured the direct mandate. Annen, who was elected to the Bundestag via the list, had announced in June that he would not run again for the Bundestag.
Schmidt: "Hamburg is my home"
"It would be a great honor for me to now run for the highest office that can be directly elected in Germany, after having made politics without my own mandate so far," writes Schmidt in his letter to the Eimsbüttel comrades. He emphasizes: "Hamburg is my home. Here I grew up and - together with some of you - started making politics with and in the Jusos. Here also began my cooperation with Olaf Scholz, whom I eventually followed to Berlin in 2002."
He has been a season ticket holder and member of FC St. Pauli for over thirty years. "Whenever possible, I try to be at the home games at the Millerntor. Of course, if elected to the Bundestag, I would again take an apartment in the constituency and be present in the constituency."
The candidacy will be finally decided in mid-September. Until then, other candidates for the direct mandate can still apply, but only on the proposal and by majority decision of the district delegates' assembly, a district board, or the district assembly of the SPD district Eimsbüttel. Then, according to Pein, a members' poll would take place. However, with the unanimous vote of the district board for the nomination of Schmidt, this is considered extremely unlikely.
The German Press Agency reported that Milan Pein, the board member of the former Hamburg SPD district association Eimsbüttel, nominated Wolfgang Schmidt as the direct candidate for the Bundestag election, replacing Niels Annen who announced his withdrawal. The German Press Agency was also the source of the information about Wolfgang Schmidt's letter to his comrades, expressing his desire to win the direct mandate in Eimsbüttel for the SPD in the next Bundestag election.
