Scholz loses vote of confidence before the German Parliament and the way is paved for early elections
Afp
La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, December 17, 2024, p. 23
Berlin. The federal chancellor of Germany, the social democrat Olaf Scholz, yesterday lost a vote of confidence before the Bundestag (Lower House of Parliament), paving the way for the holding of early general elections on February 23.
The Bundestag vote, which Scholz expected to lose, allows President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to dissolve the legislature and formally declare a call to the polls.
The vote came after an intense debate in the lower house, where political groups mutually criticized the electoral advance.
Scholz, 66, is seeking another term, but is far behind in the polls, behind conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the party of former federal chancellor Angela Merkel.
After more than three years in power, the tripartite coalition led by Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), along with the Greens and the Liberal Democratic Party (FDP) broke up on November 6.
Germany has been in a political crisis for months as it tries to revive its economy, hit by energy prices and tough competition from China.
The German government also faces the challenges posed by Russia’s war in Ukraine and the imminent return of Donald Trump to the White House, which calls into question future trade relations with the United States.
These questions were the focus of yesterday’s heated debate between Scholz, Merz and other political leaders.
Finally, 207 parliamentarians maintained their confidence in Scholz compared to 394 who did not, with 116 abstentions.
I am glad that the decision has finally been made, that things are moving and that citizens now have the sayScholz told the NTV television channel after losing the vote of confidence.
During the debate, the federal chancellor argued that his government has managed to strengthen the armed forces that previous administrations, led by the CDU, had left “in a truly deplorable state.”
It is time to invest powerfully and decisively in Germanysaid Scholz, and warned that a highly armed nuclear power (Russia) wages a war in Europe, just a two-hour flight from here.
But Merz replied that he left the country in one of the biggest economic crises of the postwar period. He had his chance, but he didn’t take advantage of it. You don’t deserve trusthe expressed.
On November 6, when Scholz fired his finance minister, the FDP’s Christian Lindner, the coalition collapsed.