After weeks of negotiations, statements and votes within the parties of the majority, it was to be only a formal passage. Instead, it was not like that: the conservative Friedrich Merz was unable to be elected Germany’s chancellor in the first round of voting of the parliamentarians, even if on paper he could have counted on a sufficient majority of deputies of his own deployment and the Social Democrats, with whom he intends to govern in coalition.
The francs of the shooters
The president of the Bundestag announced that 621 votes were expressed out of a total of 630, one of which is not valid. Merz has only obtained 310 votes, while 316 would be served to be elected. A number that should have reached easily, given that the coalition formed by CDU-CSU and SPD has 328 votes available. The two parties immediately summoned an emergency meeting to understand what happened and study the next moves.
Never in the postbellic history of the Federal Republic of Germany, a chancellor candidate had not been elected in the first round. Merz will now be subjected to a second round of voting within 14 days, at the end of which, if it does not get the absolute majority again, the relative majority of the deputies will be sufficient. His appointment should therefore be insured, but it is a blow to the very strong, terrible image.
Malumori in the CDU
Spries of the SPD, speaking with the DPA, ensured that all social democratic deputies were present and would vote in favor of the leader of the Union. If this were true, this would mean that Merz would have been betrayed by Franchi rackets of his parliamentary group.
Even before the new Parliament came into office, the party leader had managed to have the outgoing legislation approved for a huge program of loans focused on defense and infrastructure, saying goodbye to the line of rigid austerity, which did not everyone liked in the CDU.
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Political and image blow
The same chancellor in pectore, after the victory of the elections of February 24 and the achievement of the agreement with the Social Democrats of the SPD, announced Tronfio: “Germany is back”. Germany has returned. And he said it in English, because the message was aimed above all at Donald Trump.
Trump himself who, together with Elon Musk, has openly deployed with the radical right of alternative for Germany, the bollusted party as “extremist organization” from the Intelligence services of Berlin and for this place under observation. A decision that made a sensation and against which the party launched a legal battle, denouncing it as a blow to democracy. And in this situation of chaos, the rejection of what should be the future chancellor does nothing but complicate things.
The failure of the first round “demonstrates how fragile the foundations of this coalition are”, exulted the leader of the AFD Alice Weidel. “It is the first time that a good thing happens, because an electoral scam of this reach cannot happen, one cannot become a chancellor in this way,” he added, asking for new elections.
Repercussions in Europe
Expected with hope in Europe to succeed the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, the 69 -year -old winner of the February elections was already expected tomorrow for a meeting in Paris with the French president Emmanuel Macron. The visit, already planned even before the investiture that seemed so obvious, was to serve to show the world that the Franco-German axis is stronger than ever and ready to resume the reins of a Europe ever as now needs to show itself strong and compact.
But this humiliation blew up the plans and was a terrible blow for Merz’s authority, who just promised to “make Germany progress” in these times of “great uncertainty”, and to “restore pride” to the country, which is facing a deep crisis of its industrial model.
And the first repercussion of the blow was in the markets: the German actions continued to descend from almost record levels and the bond returns also fell.
The victory of measurement in the elections
Merz’s conservatives had won the February elections with 28.5 percent of the votes, and for this reason they needed at least one partner to form a majority government. On Monday they signed a coalition agreement with the SPD, which at the ballot box had obtained a miserable 16.4 percent, which however allowed the two together, to elect more than half of the Bundestag deputies.
It was a return of the great coalition, but this time it was not so large, and in fact it is not defined in Germany Große Koalition. In the past the Groko between the two Volkspartien of the country have come to have almost 80 percent of the seats in Parliament. Now they stop at a skimpy 52.
And in the meantime, both parties also seem to have lost consensus after the already shaking performances of February, with the extreme right of alternative for Germany, which has come second, and which is now in the lead in several polls.
