Germany’s conservative leader Friedrich Merz unexpectedly fell short of a majority in a parliament vote to become chancellor on Tuesday.
His failure was unprecedented in modern German political history and members of the Bundestag convened for a second vote on Tuesday afternoon.
Merz needed 316 votes in the 630-seat Bundestag but only secured 310, in a significant blow to the Christian Democrat leader, two and a half months after winning Germany’s federal elections.
His coalition with the centre left has enough seats in parliament but it appears 18 MPs who had been expected to back him dissented.
Under Germany’s constitution, there is no limit to how many votes can be held, but if no absolute majority of more than half the Bundestag’s members is reached within 14 days, then a candidate can be elected by a simple majority.
There was a prevailing mood of confusion in the parliament in the hours after the vote.
Bundestag President Julia Klöckner was initially said to be planning a second vote on Wednesday, but Christian Democrat General Secretary Carsten Linnemann said it was important to press ahead.
“Europe needs a strong Germany, that’s why we can’t wait for days,” he told German TV.
Parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn appealed to his colleagues’ sense of responsibility: “all of Europe, perhaps the whole world, is watching this ballot.”
Merz’s defeat was seen by political commentators as a humiliation, possibly inflicted by a handful of disaffected members of the Social Democrat SPD, which signed a coalition deal with his conservatives on Monday.
The Bundestag president told MPs that nine of the 630 MPs were absent, three abstained and another ballot paper was declared invalid.
Not everyone in the SPD was happy with the deal, but party officials were adamant their party was fully committed to it.
“It was a secret vote so nobody knows,” senior Social Democrat MP Ralf Stegner told the BBC, “but I can tell you I don’t have the slightest impression that our parliamentary group wouldn’t have known our responsibility.”
Party leader Lars Klingbeil, who is set to become Germany’s next vice-chancellor, said it was his assumption that Merz would win a majority in Tuesday’s second vote.
The historic nature of Merz’s failure will be difficult for him to move on untarnished. No candidate has failed in this way in the 76 years of Germany’s post-war republic.
The embarrassment undermines Merz’s hopes of being an antidote to the weakness and division of the last government, which collapsed late last year.
Far-right party Alternative for Germany, which came second in the February election with 20.8% of the vote, seized on his failure and called for fresh elections.
Joint leader Alice Weidel wrote on X that the vote showed “the weak foundation on which the small coalition has been built between the [conservatives] and SPD, which was rejected by voters”.
Merz’s choice for foreign minister, Christian Democrat colleague Johann Wadephul, told the BBC the vote was “an obstacle but not a catastrophe”.
“We will have a second attempt, of course, with Friedrich Merz again as candidate from the coalition. And I’m sure he will be elected and he will be the next chancellor.”
Germany’s handover of government is carefully choreographed. On the eve of Tuesday’s vote, outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz was treated to a traditional Grand Tattoo by an armed forces orchestra.
Merz, 69, was expected first to win the vote and then visit President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to be sworn in, fulfilling a long-held ambition to become German chancellor.
His rival and former chancellor Angela Merkel had come to the Bundestag to watch the vote take place.
Caretaker ministers from Germany’s outgoing government were all planning to hand over to their successors on Tuesday afternoon.
His defeat threatens to cause splits within the coalition.
Political correspondents in the Bundestag said the failure to back Merz indicated that even if the coalition did come to power eventually, there was a potential issue lurking within its ranks.
AfD MP Bernd Baumann said the CDU had promised a string of policies similar to his own party’s, such as limiting migration, and then went into an alliance with the centre left: “That doesn’t work. That’s not how democracy works.”
“This isn’t good,” warned Green politician Katrin Göring-Eckardt. “Even though I don’t want this chancellor or support him, I can only warn everyone not to rejoice in chaos.”
Less than 24 hours earlier, the messaging had been very different, of Germany under a stable government putting six months of political paralysis to an end.
“It’s our historical duty to make this government a success,” Merz had said as he signed the coalition document.
Despite having a narrow majority of 12 seats, the agreement between the conservatives and centre left was seen as far more stable than the so-called traffic-light coalition of three parties which fell apart last November in a row over debt spending.
The SPD, which had been the biggest party in the old coalition slumped to its worst post-war election result in third place, but Merz had promised that Germany was back and that he would boost its voice on the world stage and revive a flagging economy.
After two years of recession, Europe’s largest economy grew in the first three months of 2025. However economists have warned of potential risks to German exports because of US-imposed tariffs.
Germany’s services sector contracted last month because of weaker demand and lower consumer spending.
Also read: German AfD Party categorised as extremist by security agency
Source: Paul Kirby and Jessica Parker – BBC
