[News Figures] 'Position Shaken' Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Early German Election Possible

Olaf Scholz's position is shaking due to the collapse of Germany's first three-party coalition government, the 'traffic light coalition.' On the 10th (local time), Scholz agreed to a confidence vote within the year. According to foreign media, Scholz said in an interview with Germany's ARD broadcaster, "If the major parties agree, I hope a confidence vote on me will be swiftly requested in parliament before this Christmas." A confidence vote for the chancellor is a procedure for an early general election. If the confidence vote in parliament is rejected, parties proceed to an early election. In December 2021, Scholz formed a three-party coalition government consisting of his Social Democratic Party (SPD), Christian Lindner's Free Democratic Party (FDP), and Robert Habeck's Green Party. The coalition is called the 'traffic light coalition' because the parties' symbolic colors are red, yellow, and green. The coalition had ongoing conflicts as former minister Lindner insisted on strengthening policies to reduce social welfare benefits such as refugee aid and unemployment benefits and to lessen the burden on businesses. The traffic light coalition failed to reconcile differences and eventually collapsed on the 6th.

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Scholz is the ninth chancellor of Germany. He was elected on December 8, 2021, in the Bundestag's lower house vote in Berlin, receiving 395 votes out of 736 members present. His term is four years.

Scholz was born on June 14, 1958, in Osnabr?ck, Lower Saxony, West Germany, as the eldest of three brothers. According to The New York Times, his grandfather was a railway worker, and his parents were workers in a textile factory. He spent his childhood in Hamburg. Growing up in Hamburg, where support for the Social Democratic Party was strong, he naturally nurtured dreams of becoming a Social Democratic politician.

Scholz joined the Social Democratic Party in 1975 when he was a 17-year-old high school student. He was active in the party's youth organization, Jusos (Young Socialists), and was deeply interested in Marxism. Later, Scholz entered the University of Hamburg to study law. From 1985, he worked as a labor law specialist lawyer.

Scholz became a member of the Bundestag in 1998 and served as the SPD's secretary-general for two years starting in 2002. At that time, he was nicknamed 'Scholzomat,' a robot-like nickname, because he announced the policies of Gerhard Schr?der's SPD government in a monotonous tone. The nickname combines his name with 'Automat,' meaning automation. He later served as Minister of Labor and Social Affairs from 2007 to 2009 during Chancellor Angela Merkel's first term. From 2011, he was mayor of Hamburg for seven years. In Merkel's fourth cabinet, he served as vice chancellor and finance minister.

He met his wife, Britta Ernst, in the mid-1980s through Jusos. Britta Ernst has served as Brandenburg's Minister of Education and Minister of Culture. The couple married in 1998 and have no children.