Germany’s conservative leader Friedrich Merz yesterday suffered a serious blow when he failed to win a parliamentary majority in the first round of voting on him becoming the next chancellor.
The unexpected setback, a first in German post-war history, prolongs the half-year of political paralysis that has prevailed in Berlin since the collapse of the coalition government of Olaf Scholz.
Merz had hoped in the secret ballot to win the required absolute majority of at least 316 of the 630 votes in the lower house of parliament. However, he only won the backing of 310 MPs, with 307 voting against him.
Photo: Reuters
There will now be at least one more round of voting in the Bundestag, although it was unclear when, with German media reporting that no further votes were expected yesterday.
According to the constitution, MPs have 14 days to hold the second round.
In the third and final round, a simple majority of lawmakers would suffice to see Merz elected.
Yesterday’s vote had been widely seen as a formality.
Merz theoretically had the backing of a coalition of his CDU/CSU alliance, which won February’s general elections, and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) of Scholz, who together have 328 seats.
Of the 630 MPs in the lower house, three lawmakers abstained, nine were absent and there was one invalid ballot paper.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) — the largest opposition party, which scored a record result of over 20 percent in the election — cheered the surprise result.
“Merz should step aside and the way should be cleared for a general election,” AfD co-leader Alice Weidel told reporters.
She called the result a “good day for Germany.”
The result keeps Scholz in the post of caretaker chancellor for now and has upended the political calendar in Berlin.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had been due to swear in the new Cabinet and Merz had planned visits to Paris and Warsaw today.
Bodo Ramelow of the far-left opposition party Die Linke said he was “angry” that Merz and his designated vice chancellor, Lars Klingbeil of the SPD, “allowed such a situation” to come about.
If Merz eventually goes on to become chancellor, the 69-year-old head of the CDU/CSU alliance would take over from Scholz, whose three-party coalition government collapsed in November on the day US President Donald Trump won re-election.
Hoping to become modern Germany’s 10th chancellor, Merz has vowed to revive the ailing economy, curb irregular migration and strengthen Berlin’s role in Europe, as it responds to increasingly turbulent times.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS