German Chancellor Olaf Scholz loses confidence vote, early election set for February 23

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote in parliament on Monday. This development has set the stage for an early general election scheduled for February 23. In the German Bundestag, 394 deputies voted against Scholz, while 207 supported him. There were also 116 absentees.

The Bundestag speaker, Bärbel Bas, said, “We have reached the end of our daily agenda, and also of the traffic light coalition,” referring to the now-collapsed three-way alliance.

The result of the vote enables President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to dissolve the Bundestag and formally call for new elections.

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The vote followed a tense and heated debate where Chancellor Scholz laid out his plans for significant investments in security, business, and social welfare. However, the opposition criticised his delay in acting, asking, “Were you on another planet?”

Scholz defended his administration’s record, stating that his government had increased spending on Germany’s armed forces, which had been left “in a deplorable state” by previous CDU-led governments. “It is high time to invest powerfully and decisively in Germany,” Scholz added. “A highly armed nuclear power is waging war in Europe just two hours’ flight from here,” he warned.

Friedrich Merz, the opposition leader from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) accused Scholz of leaving Germany stuck in “one of the biggest economic crises of the postwar era”. He declared, “You had your chance, but you did not use it … You, Mr Scholz, do not deserve confidence.”

Scholz’s political troubles began when his fragile three-party coalition fell apart on November 6, the same day Donald Trump won re-election in the United States.

(With inputs from agencies)