Berlin: Friedrich Merz succeeded Tuesday in his bid to become the next German chancellor during a second vote in parliament, hours after he suffered a historic defeat in the first round.
The conservative leader had been expected to smoothly win the vote to become Germany’s 10th chancellor since World War II. No candidate for chancellor in postwar Germany has failed to win on the first ballot.
Merz received 325 votes in the second ballot.
He needed a majority of 316 out of 630 votes in a secret ballot but only received 310 votes in the first round — well short of the 328 seats held by his coalition.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday he seeks more European and transatlantic leadership from Germany following Friedrich Merz’s win to become the country’s 10th chancellor.
Merz, 69, who led his conservatives to a federal election victory in February and has signed a coalition deal with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), won 325 votes, nine more than needed for an absolute majority, in the secret ballot.
He had secured just 310 votes in the first round of voting, meaning at least 18 coalition lawmakers failed to back him.
After the vote, he headed to the nearby Bellevue Palace to be formally nominated by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Later, he will return to the historic Reichstag building in the heart of Berlin to take the oath of office to become Germany’s 10th chancellor since the end of World War Two.
Merz is under heavy pressure to show German leadership after the implosion last November of outgoing SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-way coalition left a political vacuum at the heart of Europe even as it faced a myriad of crises.
