The candidate for Chancellor of Germany and leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Friedrich Merz failed to win the first round of voting in the Bundestag. He was only six votes short of the required absolute majority.
This is reported by tagesschau.
310 MPs voted for Merz, 307 against. To elect the Chancellor in the first round, at least 316 votes are needed.
According to Spiegel, a few minutes before the results were announced, Bundestag President Julia Klöckner had a serious conversation with the CDU party leadership.
"Serious faces, serious discussion. It seemed that something unexpected had happened. Then the announcement of the result. Merz tries to smile, but apparently already knows that he has lost. He gets up and leaves the hall with his entourage," the correspondent writes.
The Welt newspaper notes that there has never been a similar case in German politics: no candidate nominated after successful coalition negotiations has previously lost the vote in the first round.
According to German law, parliament has 14 days to elect a Chancellor with an absolute majority of 316 votes. During this period, several rounds of voting are allowed. If agreement is still not reached after that, a simple majority is possible in the third round, after which the decision remains with the President: to approve the Chancellor or to dissolve the Bundestag and call new elections.
Recall that Germany is trying to collect any air defense system around the world for transfer to Ukraine, as well as find money to buy everything it can get.
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