Friedrich Merz has been elected German chancellor at the second time of trying – the first time someone in his position has failed to be elected on the first attempt.
The centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader received 325 votes, nine more than the 316 that constitute an absolute majority in the Bundestag. In the first vote this morning, Merz received just 310 votes. That was despite his coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) holding some 328 seats in parliament. Like many recent political developments in Germany, it was a first for the Federal Republic.
Merz already faces one of the toughest intrays of any recent chancellor
Because the vote for chancellor is held using a secret ballot, it’s not immediately obvious who was responsible for the missing votes. There are plenty of suspects. Perhaps some holdouts were CDU MPs who had not forgiven Merz for his decision to abandon the debt brake after February’s election. Knowing he did not have the votes to pass this reform with the new parliament, he instead recalled the outgoing parliament to approve the new €500 billion (£420 billion) fund.
Another possibility is that SPD MPs were protesting against Merz’s decision, in January, to court votes from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) for a resolution on immigration. After that vote, several MPs told me the decision would make it harder to vote for Merz as chancellor. SPD MPs may also have been expressing their disagreement with Merz’s designated vice-chancellor, SPD co-leader Lars Klingbeil, who irritated his party by proposing an almost entirely new slate of ministers.
Though Merz was eventually elected, the failed vote will have consequences. That the new government had a weak mandate was already known – the two parties’ combined share of the vote is the lowest in history. It has now been further weakened by the revelation that it is unpopular even among its own MPs. They may have thought they were registering a consequence-free protest vote; in the event, they caused the incoming chancellor significant embarrassment.
Merz already faces one of the toughest intrays of any recent chancellor, needing to manage widespread dissatisfaction over the immigration system, a stagnating economy and the US withdrawal from Europe. He had hoped to immediately begin tackling these problems – not least using the new investment fund. It is now clear he begins his term lacking much of the political capital he believed he had.
The vote will also be seen with trepidation by other European countries, which had been looking with hope at Germany’s professed awakening on defence and foreign policy. They will now have to reckon with Merz facing political headwinds from all sides. He had hoped to fly to Paris and Warsaw tomorrow to project a message of European unity; instead, he will meet his counterparts politically winded.
That said, the majority in the second vote shows that almost all the opposition within the coalition was opportunistic rather than structural – that is, they wanted to express opposition to the Merz government rather than prevent the chancellor from taking office.
If Merz wants this episode to be remembered as a temporary setback rather than as a harbinger of further trouble to come, he will need to shed the arrogance many Germans – including, it’s now clear, some of his MPs – ascribe to him. His style as CDU leader has been for flashy, high-risk gambits, including courting the AfD for a vote on immigration, or passing debt brake reform using the outgoing parliament. Whether well-intentioned or not, these moves clearly caused mounting resentment among the MPs whose support he needed today.
In the short term, the only winner is the AfD. Now leading in some polls, the far-right party welcomed today’s political chaos. ‘This government starts out in extreme instability,’ said AfD MP Bernd Baumann. ‘And it will remain unstable. That is the opposite of what Germany needs.’
Merz had hoped bold political decisions would allow him to govern better than the outgoing SPD-led government, and thereby keep the AfD out of office. Merz will need to hope that the rest of his term bodes better for his strategy.
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