“This decision of the Bundestag opens the way for early elections in Germany”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
Of the 717 deputies who took part in the vote, 207 expressed confidence in Sholtz’s government, 394 expressed no confidence, and 116 abstained.
This decision by the Bundestag opens the way for early elections: President Frank-Walter Steinmeier can call elections within 60 days. He has already stated that he is ready to make such a decision.
As previously reported by the dpa agency, the parliamentary leaders of the country’s largest political parties – Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SDPN) and the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDS) – reached an agreement on the schedule of elections, voting will be held on February 23.
The next elections in Germany were to be held in September 2025.
The agreement was reached after a week of wrangling in Berlin after Scholz fired his Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the Free Democrats (VDP) on November 6, leading to the party’s exit from the tripartite coalition that came to power in 2021. The Free Democrats’ exit – the result of months of bitter negotiations over the government’s proposed 2025 budget – left the chancellor without a majority in the Bundestag and effectively unable to govern the country.