Friedrich Merz has suffered a humiliating defeat in the Bundestag after failing to secure the majority required to confirm him as Germany’s next chancellor.
This is the first time this has happened in Germany’s postwar history, and it is a huge personal embarrassment for Merz, who has repeatedly declared that with his government “Germany is back” and ready to offer much needed stability in European politics.
After lengthy negotiations, Merz’s CDU/CSU formally signed a coalition agreement with the Social Democrats (SPD) on Monday. The arrangement, billed as “taking responsibility for Germany”, technically gives them 328 votes in the new parliament.
But in a critical vote on Tuesday morning, expected to be a formality, Merz failed to secure the necessary backing of 316 lawmakers, and returned only 310 votes in favour, meaning that 18 of the coalition parties’ parliamentarians failed to vote for him.
We don’t know, and more crucially, neither do Merz and his allies.
The vote was held as a secret ballot, meaning there is no list of individual votes.
That makes it more difficult for coalition parties to find the rebels and try to convince them to change their minds as they consider their plans and prepare to have another go at confirming Merz as the chancellor.
Technically, the Bundestag has 14 days to confirm the new chancellor, and there is no limit on the number of times they can vote,according to the German government’s explainer.
But the CDU/CSU and the SPD want to move on from today’s fiasco as quickly as possible, with the second attempt scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
The new chancellor’s team is keen to put Merz in a position where he can get on with the business of governing and dismiss the earlier defeat merely as a blip.
Merz had plans to visit Paris and Warsaw on Wednesday on his first foreign trips, followed by VE Day events on Thursday and a meeting at Nato on Friday. It is not unreasonable to think he would like to keep some of these commitments.
But then again, the last thing he and his allies would want is to lose again, as that could be a hit to the Merz’s political position.
In the meantime, the outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz, remains in place with his ministers – even though he had his formal farewell on Monday night.
Not really.
The coalition could theoretically replace Merz and propose someone else for the job, but there are no obvious candidates and they publicly reiterated their support for their leader.
Following the snap elections in February, there is no alternative two-way coalition in the current Bundestag that would not involve the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the largest opposition party.
A three-way coalition, for example with the Greens, would most likely bring its own set of problems, including how to agree on a coherent policy platform.
If everything else fails, there is an option to call another election as a way out of the crisis, but that would be unpopular with the already disenchanted voters.
Well, the AfD is loving this chaos. They have long argued that the “black-red” coalition would end up in chaos sooner rather than later and will be keen to make that point in the coming hours.
In a social media post, the AfD co-leader Alice Weidel said the vote “demonstrates the weak foundation” on which the coalition is built and later called for a snap election.
With her party already coming top in some polls, partly because of the growing disillusionment with mainstream parties and frustration with the pace of the government-forming process, another vote could result in the party growing even stronger.
Any further gains by the AfD would seriously question the idea the party can be kept behind the “firewall” that seeks to keep it on the margins of German politics.
But the party also faces serious reputational and legal problems after Germany’s domestic intelligence agency formally listed it as an extremist group.
The party said it would appeal against the designation.