German conservative leader Friedrich Merz has won a parliament vote to become Germany’s next chancellor at the second attempt.
Merz had initially fallen six votes short of the absolute majority he needed on Tuesday morning – a significant blow to his prestige and an unprecedented failure in post-war German history.
As it was a secret ballot in the 630-seat Bundestag, there was no indication who had refused to back him – whether MPs from his centre-left coalition partner or his own conservatives.
After hours of uncertainty in the Bundestag, the parties and the president of the Bundestag agreed to hold a second vote, which Merz then won with 325 votes, a majority of nine.
His coalition with the Social Democrats should have had enough seats in parliament from the start, with 328 MPs in total, but it is thought 18 of them dissented during the first vote.
No chancellor candidate has lost a Bundestag vote in the 76 years since democracy was restored in Germany in 1949, and there was a prevailing mood of confusion in parliament in the hours after the vote.
Under Germany’s constitution, there is no limit to how many votes can be held but in practice another defeat for Merz would have meant a headache for his Christian Democrats, its sister party the Christian Social Union and their partner the Social Democrats.
The result meant a total debacle had been averted, declared one German news website.
Merz, 69, was then sworn in as chancellor by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and his team of 17 ministers were due to take office.
Bundestag President Julia Klöckner had originally been planning a follow-up vote on Wednesday, but Christian Democrat General Secretary Carsten Linnemann said it was important to press ahead.
“Europe needs a strong Germany, that’s why we can’t wait for days,” he told German TV.
Parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn appealed to his colleagues’ sense of responsibility: “All of Europe, perhaps the whole world, is watching this ballot.”
Merz’s defeat had been seen by political commentators as a humiliation, possibly inflicted by a handful of disaffected members of the Social Democrat SPD, which signed a coalition deal with his conservatives on Monday.
The Bundestag president told MPs that nine of the 630 MPs had been absent for the first vote while three had abstained and another ballot paper had been declared invalid. Some young Social Democrats had publicly said they were not convinced by Merz. However, SPD officials were adamant their party was fully committed to the coalition deal.