Following the breakdown of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has ordered the dissolution of parliament and the holding of new elections on February 23, claiming that this is the only option to provide the country with a stable administration capable of addressing its challenges.
Scholz lost a confidence vote on December 16 and now leads a minority administration after his unpopular and notoriously contentious three-party coalition collapsed a month earlier when he fired his finance minister over how to revive Germany’s lagging economy.
Steinmeier said he made the decision because it was clear after consultation with party leaders that there was no agreement among Germany’s political parties on a majority for a new government in the current parliament.
“It is precisely in difficult times like these that stability requires a government capable of taking action and a reliable majority in parliament,” he said as he made the announcement in Berlin.
“Therefore I am convinced that for the good of our country new elections are the right way.”
Election campaigns are already well underway, with Mr Scholz planning “modernise” Germany’s strict rules on running up debt, to increase the national minimum wage and to reduce value-added tax on food.
His center-right opponent, Friedrich Merz, criticised the Social Democrats’ proposal as “running up debt at the expense of the younger generation”.
Another source of conflict among lawmakers is the war in Ukraine.
The chancellor emphasized Germany’s commitment to Ukraine, but insisted on not supplying long-range Taurus cruise missiles due to fears about intensifying the conflict with Russia.
“We will do nothing that jeopardises our own security,” Mr Scholz said.
But Mr Merz, whose Christian Democratic Union is currently polling much higher than Mr Scholz’s party, said they did “not need any lectures on war and peace.”
His party has been open to sending long-range missiles, but stressed that the political rivals were united in “an absolute will to do everything so that this war in Ukraine will end as quickly as possible.”
Confidence votes are rare in Germany – this was only the sixth time in its postwar history that a chancellor has called one.
