The voice is monotonous and the look is inscrutable. What is this face hiding? This smile, somewhere between shy and frozen? What does Olaf Scholz think, what does he feel? After an hour of dialogue with fifty citizens selected by a local newspaper in northern Germany, the enigma remains intact.
“Herr Scholz, I must say that your answers have disappointed me,” shoots a man in the audience. “Sometimes one has the impression that the answers are prepared.”
This is Schwerin, capital of the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, which is the national headquarters of the German Unity Day celebrations this year. And this is the German chancellor, who tries to respond to the disappointed citizen, but he does not allow himself to be interrupted. And then he cites the advances in artificial intelligence and asks why not invent a machine that automatically produces the answers that Scholz gives: this way the Germans would save money and Scholz would save time. Laughter.
“My question,” the man concludes, “is why voters should choose you, the real human being, and not the artificial variant that could probably give similar answers.”
Robot fame. Scholz has always been dragging her along. Already from his time in the socialist youth, “he had strategic skills in power struggles and a sharp intellect,” writes one of the journalists who know him best, Daniel Brössler, author of Ein deutscher Kanzler. Olaf Scholz, der Krieg und die Angst (A German chancellor. Olaf Scholz, war and fear). “At the same time,” Brössler points out, “he is not a man who makes hearts flutter, nor someone who opens up easily to others.” “Emotions in politics are suspicious to him,” he adds.
In Germany, for historical reasons, there is an allergy to charismatic men, and in this the social democrat Scholz is German in the best sense of the word. Too German?
“He has the reputation of being an automaton,” another of the attendees, the Bavarian tourist Moritz Mayländer, 24, will say at the end of the meeting. “But you have responded professionally to the questions,” he applauds. “And he has not avoided them.”
One-term chancellor?
If Scholz is indeed a robot, the robot is broken. The coalition he leads, which includes environmentalists and liberals, is a mess. The polls predict a collapse of the three partners in the legislative elections scheduled for next September. This, if they don’t come forward. Scholz could become the first one-term chancellor since the Christian Democrat Kurt-Georg Kiesinger in the 1960s.
To the disappointed citizen who wonders if it would not be the same or better to have an artificial intelligence in charge of Germany, Scholz responds that, precisely, what an artificial intelligence would do is adapt the answers to the public, according to the algorithm. Deep down, he is coherent.
“It would not be good for someone with political responsibility to say different things in Schwerin than in Gera or Munich when faced with the same questions,” he says. “I don’t argue with you that, compared to many others, I don’t feel comfortable with slogans and I do feel comfortable with serious things. And I am not going to change this anymore and that is how I want to win the elections again.”
There are questions about the Middle East and Ukraine, about electric cars, about the emigration of young people from the east to the west of Germany, about the success of the extreme right in the regional elections this September in eastern Germany, where it won a third of the votes. “An important expression says: Be careful at the beginning,” says a woman, alluding to the warning, which Germans do not want to forget, that the worst must be avoided before it is too late.
The woman speaks, of course, about the extreme right: “I am worried about what is happening in this country.” Scholz responds: “Right-wing extremism is not good for our country, nor is right-wing populism, because it divides society, it always looks for enemies within and outside, and it always ends in a way that is not peaceful.” But the woman has also asked him if he is in favor of outlawing the ultra Alternative for Germany party. And the chancellor declares: “It is not on the agenda.”
Periodically, Scholz organizes meetings like this, face to face with citizens. Whether they work is another thing. At the exit, the young Mayländer says that he voted for the SPD in 2021, but that he would now vote for the CSU, the Christian Social party of his native Bavaria. “I want to try something different,” he justifies. Writes Brössler, also a journalist for the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitungwhich Scholz “only rarely manages to explain himself and his intentions.” “In uncertain times, this is dangerous,” he warns. “It is not enough for the chancellor to be convinced. “You must convince.”
Who is the man with the monotone voice, with the frozen smile? “I am reluctant to value myself,” he responds to a woman who asks him about “the real Olaf Scholz,” although in the end he will concede: “These talks with citizens amuse me more than any interview.”
