The leadership of Germany's ruling Social Democrats (SDP) will discuss at a meeting late on Tuesday whether Chancellor Olaf Scholz is the right man to lead their party into the upcoming snap election, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, the latter reports.

The SPD leadership has so far stood firmly behind Scholz's bid to run for a second term as chancellor in the national election, which was brought forward to February 2025 after his fractious three-way coalition collapsed on November 6.

But the telephone conference on the centre-left party's upcoming election campaign comes amid growing calls in the lower ranks for Scholz to step aside in favor of his more popular defense minister, Boris Pistorius.