German Chancellor Olaf Scholz submitted a request to parliament on Wednesday, December 11th, to hold a vote of confidence. The vote, which the government is likely to lose, is scheduled for next week,. This will pave the way for early elections in February.
At the Bundestag vote next Monday, all the opposition parties are expected to declare they have no confidence in the government. This will allow the country’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to dissolve the legislature within a maximum of 21 days and then call elections within another 60 days. This is expected to lead to elections on February 23rd.
Scholz’s left-liberal government, which came to power three years ago, collapsed in November after the smallest coalition partner, the liberal FDP, pulled out of the cabinet, leaving the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens with a minority in parliament.
The breakdown of the government was caused by major disagreements about next year’s budget, but the FDP had long been wary of remaining in the cabinet because the party was far more fiscally conservative than its coalition partners—and also rejected their pro-migration and radical ‘green’ climate policies.
The government forces and the main opposition party, the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), have agreed to hold snap elections on February 23rd. This means that Germany will go to the polls seven months earlier than scheduled.
According to the latest polls, the governing parties will be punished by the voters: the SPD is projected to get 17% of the votes (a 9-point decrease compared to its election results three years ago), the Greens are polling at 11.5% (a 3-point drop), and the FDP party could fall out of the parliament altogether, as it does not have enough support to reach the 5% threshold.
The opposition parties, which have been highly critical of the government’s economic and migration policies and have promised a U-turn on these issues, are expected to bolster their support. The centre-right CDU/CSU alliance is polling at 31.5% (a 7.5-point increase), the anti-immigration AfD is in second place with 19.5% (+9 points), and the left-wing nationalist Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, which was formed only earlier this year, is at 8%.
The other opposition party, far-left Die Linke, is also expected to drop out of the parliament.
Despite their waning support, both the SPD and the Greens have stuck to their unpopular leaders: Chancellor Scholz will be the lead candidate for the Social Democrats, and Economy Minister Robert Habeck will be the lead candidate for the Greens.
The AfD has also named its nominee for chancellor: party co-leader Alice Weidel, who said she would restore Germany’s ailing economy, reverse its climate policies, and heavily reduce migration.
Despite having more in common with the AfD than the leftist parties on issues such as migration, energy, and the economy, the CDU/CSU alliance will likely shun the right-wing party, as it has done in regional politics. There is a great likelihood that the grand coalition between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats will re-emerge following the elections.
However, because of the many policy differences, a new government will probably take months to form, and this instability comes at a time when Europe’s other major power, France, is in the middle of a political crisis and without a government.
