Merz Elected as Chancellor Hours After Failing First Vote

Merz is the first Chancellor in German history to fail a first-round vote in the Bundestag, which doesn't say much for his ability to govern.

From The European Conservative

By Tamás Orbán

Being the first German chancellor in history who needed two rounds to be confirmed already casts doubts on the long-term viability of his government.

CDU leader Friedrich Merz was elected as the next German chancellor in a second vote on Tuesday afternoon, May 6th, just six hours after failing to gather enough support from his own coalition to secure the role. This time, Merz was approved by 325, or nine votes above the required threshold, meaning he managed to convince all but three of his reluctant MPs to back his leadership.

In the first round, Merz gathered only 310 votes and failed to secure the chancellorship outright, something that’s completely unprecedented in German political history. 

The Bundestag approved the emergency motion to reconvene and hold a second vote on Merz’s chancellorship on the same day, widely seen as a desperate attempt from the ruling coalition to fix the CDU leader’s broken image. It was also a risky choice, given that two failures would have cast serious doubts on the legitimacy of Merz and his whole coalition, and would probably have triggered new elections, which the center-right would no longer be guaranteed to win.

The first vote failed when 18 MPs of the ruling parties decided to vote against, signifying the weakness of the coalition that barely achieved a majority in the February elections. Both Merz’s center-right CDU and the socialist SPD finished with their worst election results in decades, if not ever, resulting in one of the smallest majorities in Bundestag history. 

Support for the center-right then plummeted in the last two months, mainly due to Merz’s party abandoning many of its most important campaign promises in order to appease the socialists, including on the migration and climate front. As a result, the right-wing populist AfD has grown to be the most popular party in Germany, now leading the polls with 26% voter support.

There’s no telling who in his coalition voted against Merz in  Tuesday’s first secret ballot, but the 18 MPs could include both disgruntled CDU members who don’t like seeing Merz groveling before the socialists and abandoning the voters and as SPD members who want to send a signal to the would-be chancellor that they are still calling the shots and he’d better do what he’s told if he wants to remain in power.

But for all its worth, Merz’s was already described as a lost cause after the first vote, with the AfD, the second largest party in the Bundestag, quickly swooping in to declare its readiness to lead. 

“We are ready for government responsibility. And we call for common sense to prevail. Mr. Merz should resign immediately. The way should be paved for new elections in our country,” AfD Co-President Alice Weidel said in the morning.

Back in February, on the eve of the federal elections, when the establishment parties suffered their historic setbacks yet managed to cling to power, AfD leaders predicted that their weak coalition would not survive the next four years, and that a populist government was possible before 2029. 

The coalition may have avoided collapse this time, but this unprecedented struggle just to assume leadership might signal that AfD’s prediction was closer than we thought.