“It’s important that Germany gets a stable government,” Lars Klingbeil, the incoming SPD vice chancellor, told reporters in Berlin.
After talks with other parliamentary groups, it had been agreed to hold another vote for Merz starting at 3:15 p.m. local time and he was optimistic it would be successful, Klingbeil added.
It was the first time since World War II that an incoming chancellor failed to secure enough support from lawmakers in the first round of voting, preventing Merz taking over from outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz as planned and pitching Europe’s biggest economy into uncharted territory.
Merz only managed 310 votes, fewer than the required 316 out of 630 lawmakers, even though the coalition partners have 328 seats between them.
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As it was a secret ballot, the identities of those who didn’t back Merz may never be known. Conspiracy theories were already swirling about who might have been responsible and what their motives were.
