Merz takes office in Germany under distrust and dependence

Last Tuesday (6), the conservative Friedrich Merz was elected as Germany’s new chancellor. Despite being raised to the post, the government begins under the aegis of the distrust and dependence of the center-left. In a first parliamentary vote, Merz was rejected. New election was required for him to reach the minimum number of votes.

Since Merz’s party (the CDU united with the CSU, both conservative Christian) has won the elections, it was already known as the need for a coalition that offered a majority to indicate it to office. The German Parliament, the Bundestag, has 630 vacancies, so a majority is formed with 316.

Therefore, to achieve this number, conservatives, with 208 seats, joined the Social Democrat (SPD) of the current Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which has 120. In addition to the measure to guarantee the necessary votes, this action was fundamental to isolate the German far right represented by AFD that had significant growth and was second in elections with 152 vacancies.

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Although numerically the nomination of the conservative leader is guaranteed, in the first vote he had only 310 votes, 6 less than necessary. The situation brought great distrust and lasted the dependence of the alliance with the center-left social democrats. It was the first time since 1949 that a chancellor candidate lost a vote on Bundestag.

As the vote is secret, it was not known who voted opposite. But in the accounts, considering that any conservative was hardly opposed, 18 SPD votes were missing. Despite the confusion the situation did not last.

After a few hours and party meetings the parliamentarians held a new claim and Merz finally reached (and surpassed) the necessary amount with 325 votes.

Political analysts attributed the first defeat as a message to the new chancellor. SPD members were not satisfied with the coalition, however the legend leaders reaffirmed the commitment signed and managed to circumvent the situation with their colleagues.