Monday, December 6th, 2021
Seven partners for Olaf I.
Four strong women, but Lauterbach is Scholz ‘star
From Sebastian Huld
The presentation of the seven SPD ministers is actually full of surprises: the future chancellor is particularly proud of the female ministers. But the focus of the presentation is a man.
On Saturday and Sunday morning, Olaf Scholz had a couple of presumably very pleasant conversations. He informed the men and women he would like to have in his cabinet as SPD ministers about their future tasks. According to reports, there were no discussions. Those asked wanted and were in Berlin that morning. Whereby the SPD succeeded in a real coup: The Hessian SPD state chief Nancy Faeser had no one on the list outside of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
With the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the 51-year-old is given an office that Scholz regards as a key department for permanently anchoring the SPD among the broader electorate. If Hesse chooses a successor to Volker Bouffier in two years’ time, Faeser could possibly take up the position of federal minister with a supraregional reputation. Especially since Scholz, as he repeatedly emphasizes, sends three women to posts that in the past were mostly occupied by men. Faeser becomes the first Federal Minister of the Interior, Christine Lambrecht the first SPD woman in the Federal Ministry of Defense and Klara Geywitz, with the new construction and housing department, also has an office that is supposedly male connotation due to the construction aspect.
Svenja Schulze, on the other hand, has several role models for the office of Development Minister. Because development cooperation is increasingly shaped by climate issues, the previous Federal Environment Minister remains close to the area in which she has gained cross-party recognition over the past four years. Schulze says she is proud to be a member of the “Scholz 1 Cabinet”. The SPD is planning, as became clear in the debate on the vote on the coalition agreement, for more than just four years.
Whether Scholz will keep his promise of an equal cabinet with the four women is likely to cause debate in the coming days. The 16 federal ministers are actually divided between 8 women and 8 men. Including Chancellor Scholz, the men are in the majority.
Lauterbach is the star
The fact that Geywitz is only represented by an East German Social Democrat raises similar questions. After all, the SPD won the Bundestag election not least in the east. The party-internal reference to the fact that the new Potsdam Scholz was the top candidate of the Brandenburg SPD speaks against the advocates of this argument: Scholz is a proud Hanseatic and after his short time in chic Potsdam would probably not call himself the voice of the East. The party also wants to address the question of women, East Germans and social democrats with a migration background when filling the posts of state secretary. The corresponding SPD list should be announced by Tuesday at the latest.
But the real star of the ministerial presentation is Karl Lauterbach: The health politician, who received a lot of recognition, but also strong rejection in the pandemic, gets the health department. He already knew that on Sunday evening when he was sitting with “Anne Will”, but did not make the slightest hint. Top representatives of the party followed with interest whether he would succeed.
His reputation in parts of the SPD for being a sometimes unpredictable solitaire had spoken against his choice. Nobody in the SPD keeps this a secret. The loud demands of other Social Democrats and above all from the population to make Lauterbach the successor to Spahn could not be ignored. It can be assumed that in the Scholz-Lauterbach telephone call, the topics of loyalty and internal communication were addressed by the incoming Chancellor.
Schmidt wants to “keep his back free” to Scholz
Not only Lauterbach is somewhat unpredictable, but also Scholz’s closest confidante and most important man in the cabinet: the upcoming head of the Chancellery, Wolfgang Schmidt. With his tweets and other public statements, he had caused unrest from time to time in the past. That shouldn’t happen again. Schmidt announces: “I want to make sure that Olaf Scholz has his back free so that he can do what he promised: to govern properly.”
On the other hand, Scholz puts the most important issues for him in reliable hands: Hubertus Heil is the only one in the upcoming cabinet who will retain his office as Federal Minister for Labor and Social Affairs. Scholz praises him as “stubborn and clever”, which is why he entrusts him with “two very big projects of my heart”: the increase in the minimum wage to 12 euros and the stability of the pension.
The geographical distribution of the ministers is interesting. The question of the provincial proportion was obviously of secondary importance: with Faeser and Lambrecht, two Hessians fill central offices. The powerful state association of North Rhine-Westphalia is represented by Schulze and Lauterbach. Lower Saxony, which is also weighty, has only one minister in Heil, but in Lars Klingbeil the upcoming SPD chief. Then there are Schmidt from Hamburg and Geywitz from Brandenburg. Eleven regional associations are not represented at all. Baden-Württemberg has at least one co-party leader in Saskia Esken.