Germany’s Merz is before the majority of votes for Chancellor

In a parliamentary vote, Germany’s conservative guide unexpectedly no longer declined in the majority to become chancellors.

Friedrich Merz needed 316 votes in the Bundestag with 630 seats, but only secured 310, in a significant blow for the Christian Democratic Fiihrer, two and a half months after winning the national elections.

His coalition with the left center has enough seats in parliament, but it seems that 18 MPS was expected to say it back. Merz ‘failure in the first vote is considered unprecedented in modern German history.

The Bundestag will now have another 14 days to choose either Merz or another candidate as a chancellor with more than half of its members.

According to the Germany’s constitution, there is no limit for how many votes can be held. However, if no absolute majority is reached within this period, a candidate can be chosen by a simple majority.

No further voices were expected and there was a predominant mood of the confusion.

The President of the Bundestag, Julia Klöckner, is supposed to plan a second voice on Wednesday, although the general secretary of the Christian Democrat, Carsten Linnemann, said he hoped for a second round until the end of the day.

“Europe needs a strong Germany, so we cannot wait for days,” he told German television.

The defeat of Merz is considered humiliating by political commentators who may have been signed by a handful of dissatisfied members of the SPD of the Social Democrats, who signed a coalition agreement with its conservatives on Monday.

The President of the Bundestag informed the MPs that nine of the 630 MPs were not present, contained three and another ballot was declared invalid.

Not everyone in the SPD is satisfied with the deal, but party officers were firmly convinced that their party was fully obliged to do so.

“It was a secret coordination, so nobody knows,” said Ralf Stegner, a member of the Social Democrats, to the BBC, “but I can tell you that I don’t have the slightest impression that our parliamentary group would not have known our responsibility.”

The historical nature of Merz ‘failure will be difficult for him to move underbly. No candidate has failed in this way since 1949.

The embarrassment of the voice of Tuesday undermines Merz’s hopes of being an antidote against the weakness and division of the last government that collapsed at the end of last year.

A right -wing extremist party alternative for Germany, which became second in the elections in February and 20.8% of the votes recorded his failure and demanded new elections.

The common guide Alice Weidel wrote about X that the vote showed: “The weak foundation that was built the small coalition between the [conservatives] And SPD, which was rejected by the voters.

Merz ‘election for Foreign Minister, the colleague of the Christian Democratic colleague Johann WadePhul, told the BBC that the vote was “an obstacle, but not a disaster”.

“Of course we will make a second attempt with Friedrich Merz as a candidate from the coalition. And I am sure that he is chosen and he will be the next chancellor.”

Germany’s handover of the government is carefully choreographed. On the eve of the vote on Monday, the outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz was treated with a traditional Grand Tattoo by an orchestra of the armed forces.

The 69-year-old Merz was supposed to win the vote and then visit President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in order to be sworn in to fulfill a long-term ambition to become German Chancellor.

His rival and former Chancellor Angela Merkel came to the Bundestag to observe how the vote takes place.

The ministers of the caretakers from Germany’s outgoing government were all planning to hand over their successors on Tuesday afternoon.

Merz ‘immediate decision will now be to decide with his coalition partners whether he should urge a second vote and take the risk again to fail.

His defeat threatens to cause divisions within the coalition.

Political correspondents in the Bundestag said that Merz’s failure pointed out that even if the coalition at some point came to power, a potential problem lurked in their ranks.

The AfD MP Bernd Baumann said that the CDU had promised a number of guidelines that are similar to that of his own party, such as:

“This is not good,” warned the green politician Katrin Göring-Eckardt. “Although I don’t want this Chancellor to support or support him, I can only warn everyone not to be happy in chaos.”

Less than 24 hours earlier, the news in Germany was very different under a stable government, which ended six months of political paralysis.

“It is our historical duty to make this government a success,” Merz said when he signed the coalition document.

Despite a close majority of 12 seats, the agreement between the conservatives and the center was seen as much more stable than the so -called traffic lighting coalition of three parties, which resulted in debt expenditure last November.

The SPD, which was the largest party in the old coalition, put together to third place to its worst elections after the war, but Merz had promised that Germany was back and that he would increase his voice on the world stage and revive a flag economy.

After two years of recession, the largest economy in Europe grew in the first three months of 2025.

The Germany’s service sector has come together last month for weaker demand and lower consumer expenses.