Germany's center-left Social Democrats (SPD) officially nominated Chancellor Olaf Scholz as the party's lead candidate going into the snap federal election on February 23.

Scholz's nomination comes after two weeks of tense discussions within the SPD as to whether to back the incumbent chancellor for a second term or to rally behind Defense Minister Boris Pistorius instead.

What are the SPD's chances?

Pistorius, currently Germany's most popular politician according to the polls, last week announced he would not be running for chancellor and offered his support to Scholz. This paved the way for Scholz to be nominated as the SPD's lead candidate, but his approval ratings remain low.

Pistorius is one of the 33 senior SPD members who unanimously voted for Scholz as the party's chancellor candidate on Monday.

Scholz's candidacy must now be officially confirmed at the party conference on January 11, a mere formality.

Scholz is the least popular chancellor in Germany since reunification in 1990, and he faces an uphill battle to win the election expected to take place on February 23.

The SPD is currently polling in third place, with a Saturday survey by pollster INSA published on Saturday put the party on 14% behind the opposition conservative CDU-CSU union on 32% and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on 19%.

Germany's SPD 'not looking good'

Germany's governing coalition collapsed earlier in November when Chancellor Scholz dismissed Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the business-focused Free Democrats (FDP), the junior partner in the "traffic light" coalition which also featured the Greens.

For the SPD, two weeks of internal wrangling over the chancellor candidacy look set to leave a mark.

At a meeting of the Young Socialists (Jungsozialisten or "Juso"), the SPD's official youth branch, this weekend, the party's leadership duo of Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil were accused of overseeing a "s***show."

Esken admitted that the party "really didn't look good," but Klingbeil defended the arguments.

"My leadership style is to listen to the party, conduct debates and think about different scenarios," he told Deutschlandfunk radio. "Now we are all called upon to click into gear and start the election campaign."

Who are the candidates for the German election?

From the collapsed coalition, the Greens have nominated current Economics Minister and Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck with fellow party member Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock supporting his candidacy.

The conservative opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) are currently leading the polls with their candidate Friedrich Merz, while the AfD nominated leader Alice Weidel back in September.

It's the first ever time that the AfD, which is officially considered an "extreme-right" party by Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesverfassungsschutz or BfV), have nominated an official chancellor candidate.

mf/wd (AFP, dpa)