The German parliamentary elections took place on Sunday. The SDP outperformed outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling CDU/CSU bloc by 1.6 percentage points. The Greens and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) came in third and fourth, respectively.
"No," Scholz was quoted as saying by ZDF, when asked if Laschet had reached out to him with congratulations.
Earlier, SPD Secretary-General Lars Klingbeil criticized Laschet for this, noting that "good manners are expected from the Democrats, they congratulate each other." On Sunday, Laschet congratulated "all the participants in the election race on their results."
In his interview with ZDF, Scholz also said that the SPD should form a coalition with the two other parties that showed good results in the elections - the Greens and the FDP.
"The SPD is the strongest party. From the polls, we see that more people want to see me as chancellor. Three parties improved the results in this election - the SPD, the Greens and the FDP. So, we must take on the mandate to form a government. It is possible," Scholz added.
He further stressed that Germans had shown with their vote that they want the CDU/CSU to step down as the ruling party.
However, the CDU/CSU does not agree with Scholz, noting that the SPD was only narrowly ahead of the conservative alliance and that negotiations on a coalition are needed.