BERLIN (AP) — German lawmakers are set to vote on the country's next chancellor again on Tuesday afternoon, hours after conservative leader Friedrich Merz failed to win the first round in parliament in a historic defeat.
Merz, the conservative leader, had been expected to sail through the vote to become the 10th chancellor since World War II. No postwar candidate for chancellor has ever failed to win on the first ballot.
Merz needed a majority of 316 out of 630 votes but only got 310. Because the first-round vote was a secret ballot, it was not immediately clear — and might never be known — who had defected from Merz's camp.
He is still likely to take the top job after the government of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz collapsed last year and a national election was held in February. Despite his official farewell on Monday, Scholz remains in a caretaker capacity until a new chancellor takes over.
Merz's coalition is led by his center-right Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union. They are joined by Scholz's center-left Social Democrats.
Upon announcing the next vote, the head of the Union bloc in parliament, Jens Spahn, said that "the whole of Europe, perhaps even the whole world, is watching this second round of elections.”
Germany, the most populous member state of the 27-nation European Union, has the continent’s biggest economy and serves as a diplomatic heavyweight. The new chancellor's in-tray would include the war in Ukraine and the Trump administration’s confrontational trade policy on top of domestic issues, such as the rise of a far-right, anti-immigrant party.
What's next?
If Merz fails to win election in the second round, the lower house of parliament — the Bundestag — has 14 days to elect a candidate with an absolute majority. Merz can run repeatedly but other lawmakers can also throw their hat in the ring. There is no limit to the number of votes that can be held within the two-week period.
If Merz or any other candidate fails to secure a majority within those 14 days, the constitution allows for the president to appoint the candidate who wins the most votes as chancellor, or to dissolve the Bundestag and hold a new national election.
Johann Wadepuhl, the foreign minister-designate, said he was confident Merz would ultimately prevail.
“It is an annoying process, but in a parliamentary democracy, in a liberal country, this is unfortunately one of the scenarios that you have to be prepared for,” he told reporters.
Merz's biographer, Volker Resing, said that if Merz wins in the second round, everything will be fine and people may soon forget about the first-round hiccup.
Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party, slammed Merz's failure as proof that his coalition has a "weak foundation” and called for fresh elections.
AfD is the biggest opposition party in Germany’s new parliament after it placed second in February's elections. Despite its historic gains, it was shut out of coalition talks due to the so-called “firewall" that mainstream German political parties have upheld against cooperating with far-right parties since the end of the war.
80th anniversary of World War II
Tuesday's voting came on the eve of the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender in World War II. The ballots are cast in the restored Reichstag building, where graffiti left by victorious Soviet troops has been preserved at several locations.
The shadow of the war in Ukraine also loomed over Tuesday's vote. Germany is the second-biggest supplier of military aid to Ukraine, after the United States.
Overall, Germany is the fourth largest defense spender in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which studies trends in global military expenditures. Only the U.S., China and Russia are ahead.
Germany rose to that rank thanks to an investment of 100 billion euros ($107 billion) for its armed forces, a measure passed by lawmakers in 2022.
Defense spending rose again earlier this year, when parliament loosened the nation’s strict debt rules. It's a move that's been closely watched by the rest of Europe as the Trump administration has threatened to pull back from its security support on the continent.
Besides ramping up defense spending, Merz's coalition has pledged to spur economic growth, take a tougher approach to migration and catch up on long-neglected modernization..
Germany and the Trump administration
The U.S. administration has bashed Germany repeatedly since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January. Trump, who has German roots, often expressed his dislike of former Chancellor Angela Merkel during his first term in office.
This time around, Trump’s lieutenants are at the forefront — tech billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk has supported AfD for months. He hosted a chat with Weidel that he livestreamed on X earlier this year to amplify her party’s message.
Vice President JD Vance, during the Munich Security Conference in February, assailed the “firewall" and later met with Weidel, a move that German officials heavily criticized.
Last week, the German domestic intelligence service said it has classified AfD as a “right-wing extremist” organization, making it subject to greater and broader surveillance.
The decision by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution prompted blowback from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vance over the weekend. Germany’s Foreign Ministry hit back at Rubio after he called on the country to drop the classification.
The domestic intelligence service’s measure does not amount to a ban of the party, which can only take place through a request by either of parliament’s two chambers or the federal government through the Federal Constitutional Court.
Merz has not commented publicly on the intelligence service’s decision.
Germany’s economy
Germany's economy has shrunk for the past two years and is forecast by the outgoing government to see zero growth this year. The stock market slid following the vote: the DAX, the index of major German companies, was down 1.8% at one point.
The next government is expected to end months of paralysis and squabbling over government spending and economic policy that plagued Scholz’s coalition, and also add new impetus for growth with tax cuts and infrastructure spending.
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Associated Press videojournalist Fanny Brodersen in Berlin and writer David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, contributed to this report.
