Merz just lost the vote to be German chancellor. What next?

BERLIN ― Friedrich Merz’s dramatic German parliament defeat in a vote to make him chancellor is yet more evidence of the fragility of his coalition.

The loss is not fatal ― another vote is likely to take place within days ― but the outcome is humiliating for a politician who was already struggling to retain support two months after the country’s election, and amid brickbats hurled by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Merz was six votes short of the 316 MPs he needed on Tuesday to be sworn in.

Germany’s parliamentary groups are currently consulting on when a second vote will take place. It is expected to take place this week, according to German media reports, quoting members of the groups.

Merz won the Feb. 23 election and has since been trying to cobble together a coalition. His campaign promises included pledges to improve relations with Germany’s neighbors, and to take a more proactive position on the European stage. He was supposed to travel to Paris and Warsaw on Wednesday, but that seems highly unlikely now, due to the political turmoil in Berlin.

His conservative CDU is supposed to be going into coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). It’s likely that Tuesday’s parliament defeat arises from MPs from Merz’s own ranks not voting for him, and maybe simply because of MPs absent because of illness.

No other parties, including the biggest opposition party, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), were expected to vote in favor of him.

“These are times of dwindling certainty, not only as far as important political decisions are concerned, but also with regard to majorities,” political scientist, Karl-Rudolf Korte, told German public television.

The constitution stipulates that a second round of voting is possible but does not have to take place immediately, Korte explained. A second round is to take place over the course of the next two weeks, he said, if Merz is not elected then, he could be elected chancellor in a final and decisive third round of voting by simple majority, Korte added.

Merz, became a conservative member of the European Parliament in 1989, and is a party veteran with no governing experience. He left politics in the early 2000s after losing a power struggle with the more centrist Angela Merkel and spend a decade in the private sector, before returning to politics in 2018 when Merkel stepped down as the party leader of the CDU.