Germany’s Scholz loses confidence vote, likely to trigger early election in February

Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a vote of confidence in the German parliament on Monday, likely to trigger early elections in February in the European Union’s most populous member and largest economy.

Scholz won the support of 207 lawmakers in the 733-seat lower house, or Bundestag, while 394 voted against him and 116 abstained. That left him far short of the 367 majority needed to win.

Scholz has led a minority government since his unpopular and highly acrimonious three-party coalition collapsed on Nov. 6, when he fired his finance minister in a dispute over how to revive Germany’s stagnant economy. The leaders of several major parties then agreed that parliamentary elections should be held on Feb. 23, seven months earlier than originally scheduled.

The confidence vote was needed because Germany’s post-World War II constitution does not allow the Bundestag to dissolve itself. Now President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has to decide whether to dissolve parliament and hold elections.

Steinmeier has 21 days to make that decision – and, because of the election’s planned timeline, is expected to do so after Christmas. After parliament is dissolved, elections must be held within 60 days.

In practice, the campaign is already well underway, and Monday’s three-hour debate reflected that.

What did the contenders say?

Center-left Social Democrat Scholz told lawmakers the election would determine “whether we, as a strong country, have the courage to invest strongly in our future; do we have confidence in ourselves and our country, or do we put our future at stake? Do we risk our solidarity and our prosperity by delaying long-overdue investments?”

Addressing voters, Scholz promised to “modernise” Germany’s strict self-imposed rules on borrowing, raise the national minimum wage and reduce value-added tax on food.

Centre-right challenger Friedrich Merz responded that “you are leaving the country in one of the biggest economic crises in its post-war history.” “You are standing here and saying, business as usual, let’s borrow at the expense of the young generation, let’s spend money and … the word ‘competitiveness’ of the German economy did not appear once in your speech today,” Merz said. The chancellor said Germany is Ukraine’s biggest military supplier in Europe and that she wants to keep it, but stressed she would not supply long-range Taurus cruise missiles, or send German troops into the conflict, because of concerns about escalating war with Russia. “We will not do anything that would endanger our own security,” she added. “We don’t need any lectures on war and peace from Scholz’s party,” said Merz, who is ready to send long-range missiles. However, he added that political rivals in Berlin are united in “an absolute desire to do everything to end this war in Ukraine as soon as possible.”

What are their chances?

Spolls show that Scholz’s party is lagging far behind Merz’s main opposition Union bloc, which is leading. Vice-chancellor Robert Habeck of the environmentalist Greens, Scholz’s remaining partner in government, is also vying for the top job – although his party is far behind.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party, which is polling strongly, has nominated Alice Weidel as its candidate for chancellor, but she has no chance of taking the post because other parties refuse to work with her.

Germany’s electoral system traditionally produces coalitions, and polls show that no party is close to an absolute majority on its own. The election is expected to be followed by weeks of negotiations to form a new government.

Confidence votes are rare in Germany, a country of 83 million people that values ​​stability. It was only the sixth time in post-war history that a chancellor had called a confidence vote.

The last time this happened was in 2005, when then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder called an early election, which center-right rival Angela Merkel won by a slim margin.