German cancellor faces confidence vote likely to lead to snap elections

by Sophie Tanno

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz faces a confidence vote on Monday he is expected to lose, paving the way for a snap election early next year.

Scholz himself called the vote, and if he loses, he will have to ask Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to dissolve parliament in a process which would trigger fresh elections. New elections must be held within 60 days of parliament being dissolved.

Scholz, who leads the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), reached an agreement with opposition parties to hold an early federal election on February 23.

Last month, Germany’s governing coalition collapsed after disagreements over the country’s weak economy led Scholz to sack his finance minister, Christian Lindner, leaving him in a minority government with the Green Party. Lawmaking has largely ground to halt since the government’s collapse.

Scholz initially announced that he planned to hold a confidence vote on January 15, but he came under immediate pressure from the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party to hold them sooner.

Scholz’s government has grown increasingly unpopular in Germany, with Scholz also one of the least popular chancellors ever, according to a September opinion poll.

If a snap election is called, polls point to the conservative CDU, the party of former long-serving chancellor Angela Merkel, being on track to win.

The CDU is currently leading with 31% of the vote, according to a poll from Politpro, followed by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) with 18%, Scholz’s SPD with 16% and the Greens with 12%.

Currently led by Friedrich Merz, the CDU alongside its Bavarian “sister party,” the Christian Social Union (CSU), has been the most dominant force in Germany’s post-war era. Merz’s campaign has focused on measures to boost Europe’s largest economy, including incentives to work and tax cuts.

Germany’s economy shrank last year for the first time since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is set to contract again this year, according to the latest forecasts from the European Union’s executive body, the European Commission.

The AfD has also made significant ground this year, becoming in September the first far-right party to win a state election since 1945 when it stunned centrist parties to win almost a third of the vote in the eastern state of Thuringia.

Germany’s last snap election was in 2005. They were called by then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, who subsequently lost to Merkel.

*first published in: Cnn.com