The leadership of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party has sought to squash questions about his candidacy in next year’s national election after narrowly beating the far right in a regional vote.

Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, said he would stand for re-election despite being the most unpopular chancellor in the country’s modern history. A recent poll found only 16 per cent of Germans are satisfied with his fractious traffic-light coalition,

Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats appear to have held off a strong challenge from the far-right Alternative for Germany to retain power in the eastern region of Brandenburg, sparing the chancellor and his party another embarrassing electoral setback.