| By DW’s Analysis Team |
| It was a bombshell moment in German politics: Friedrich Merz, the conservative Christian Democrat candidate, failed to secure the necessary majority to become the tenth chancellor of post-war Germany. In the morning’s vote in the Bundestag, Merz won the backing of only 310 lawmakers, with 307 members voting against in a secret ballot. Three lawmakers abstained, with one invalid ballot, while nine lawmakers did not cast their votes at all. The result took Germany into unchartered waters, with no candidate for chancellor ever having failed to secure an absolute majority in the first round of voting. Merz had announced the day before that he expected to be elected in the first round of voting. This is how he reacted when he heard it was not the case. (X) Later in the afternoon, a second vote saw him garner a comfortable majority of 325 votes to become Germany’s new head of government. So far, every German chancellor has been elected in the first round, though it has sometimes been close: Konrad Adenauer was elected West Germany’s first chancellor in 1949 with exactly 50% of the votes. Helmut Schmidt (SPD) and Helmut Kohl (CDU) each received only one vote more than necessary when they were elected chancellor in 1974 and 1982 respectively. Germany is never without a government: the previous chancellor — in this case acting chancellor Olaf Scholz of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — remains in office until his successor is sworn in. |
News Credit: DW News
