Paul Kirby and Jessica Parker
In London and Berlin
Conservative leader Friedrich Merz has won a parliament vote to become Germany’s next chancellor at the second attempt.
Merz had initially fallen six votes short of the absolute majority he needed on Tuesday morning – a significant blow to his prestige and an unprecedented failure in post-war German history.
As it was a secret ballot in the 630-seat Bundestag, there was no indication who had refused to back him – whether MPs from his centre-left coalition partner or his own conservatives.
After hours of uncertainty in the Bundestag, the parties and the president of the Bundestag agreed to hold a second vote, which Merz then won with 325 votes, a majority of nine.
His coalition with the Social Democrats should have had enough seats in parliament from the start, with 328 MPs in total, but it appears 18 of them dissented during the first vote.
No chancellor candidate has lost a Bundestag vote in the 76 years since democracy was restored in Germany in 1949, and there was a prevailing mood of confusion in parliament in the hours after the vote.
Under Germany’s constitution, there is no limit to how many votes can be held but in practice another defeat for Merz would have meant a headache for his Christian Democrats, its sister party the Christian Social Union and their partner the Social Democrats.
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 had been 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 had been absent for the first vote while three had abstained and another ballot paper had been 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.
Far-right party Alternative for Germany, which came second in the February election with 20.8% of the vote, seized on his initial 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 initial vote was “an obstacle but not a catastrophe”.
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.
