Berlin: Friedrich Merz became Chancellor of Germany on Tuesday by winning the second round of voting in Parliament. However, he suffered a historic defeat in the first round of voting. Conservative leader Friedrich was expected to easily win the first round of voting and become the 10th Chancellor of Germany after World War II. But he lost in the first round.
Since World War II, no candidate in the race for the post of Chancellor in Germany has so far failed in the first round of voting. Friedrich got 325 votes in the second round of voting. He needed a majority of 316 votes out of 630 in the secret ballot, but received only 310 in the first round, well short of the 328 seats his coalition has.
No chancellor loses in first round in 76 years
No chancellor candidate has lost a Bundestag vote in the 76 years since Germany restored democracy in 1949, although confusion reigned in parliament in the hours after the latest vote. Under Germany's constitution, there is no limit to how many votes one can have, but in practice another defeat for Merz would have meant headaches for his Christian Democrats, his sister party the Christian Social Union and his fellow Social Democrats. A German news website declared that the result meant a total rout had been averted.
How Merz's defeat was a humiliation
Merz's defeat was seen by political commentators as a humiliation, possibly by some disgruntled members of the Social Democrat SPD, which signed a coalition agreement with its conservatives on Monday. The Bundestag president told lawmakers that nine of the 630 lawmakers were absent for the first vote, while three abstained and another ballot was declared invalid.
Who congratulated first?
Among the first international leaders to congratulate Germany's conservative leader Marx was Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky, who expressed hope that Germany "will become even stronger and we will see more German leadership in European and transatlantic affairs."
