STORY: Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser wants to run as a top candidate in the state elections in Hesse. However, she also wants to remain in office as Interior Minister until the election on October 8, said the SPD politician on Thursday. She emphasized that she had the Chancellor’s full backing for this. O-TON FEDERAL CHANCELLOR OLAF SCHOLZ (SPD): “The interior minister is fully occupied and will also be fully occupied with the task that she has. Incidentally, she is doing a great job. This is a great interior minister who is really helping to ensure security in Germany is making progress, and working through many, many deficits of the past bit by bit with great clarity. And at the same time it is also in the process of ensuring that our country is modernized so that, for example, we will always have enough skilled workers for a location like this And that this is a great woman who grew up here in Hesse, who can do great things and where every Hessian would wish for: Well, I would like to have one. That doesn’t surprise me.” On Friday afternoon, the heads of the Hessian Social Democrats will make their final decision in the small Hessian town of Friedewald. Politicians from the traffic light parties Greens and FDP have reacted with criticism to the announcement by Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser that she wants to run as the SPD’s top candidate in the state elections in Hesse.