The debate surrounding early elections in Germany following the collapse of the left-liberal government is degenerating into a farce. First, social democrat chancellor Olaf Scholz keeps postponing a vote of confidence. Now the head of the electoral commission says there is a “lack of paper,” preventing the printing of sufficient ballots by January.
The opposition centre-right CDU/CSU alliance, like the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, has urged Chancellor Scholz to hold a vote of confidence as soon as possible, so that snap elections can take place as early as next January.
Scholz had originally planned to ask the parliament for such a vote on January 15th, which would have delayed elections until the end of March, but said in an interview on Sunday, November 10th, that he was willing to agree to earlier elections if the opposition were to help him pass certain legislation.
It is no problem at all for me to call a vote of confidence before Christmas if everyone agrees. I am not glued to my post.
The chancellor did not say what specific laws he wanted approved by the end of this year, but he knows full well that he needs the goodwill of the opposition to have any chance of continuing to govern, even if it is for only a short period of time.
However, the opposition is not keen on giving Scholz more time.
CDU leader Friedrich Merz said Scholz could hold a vote of confidence this Wednesday, when the chancellor is already scheduled to brief parliament. New elections could then be held on January 19th. The head of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group Thorsten Frei said that “it is up to the chancellor alone to end the drama and open the door to a new beginning.” He added that the centre-right alliance would not assist the current government by acting as a substitute for the liberal FDP party, which recently withdrew from the government, causing its collapse.
The right-wing AfD also criticised Scholz for his “delaying tactics,” and demanded an immediate vote of confidence in the Bundestag.
After years of mass migration, de-industrialisation, nepotism, and corruption scandals, it is unacceptable that Chancellor Olaf Scholz is holding the country hostage.
Even the FDP criticised Scholz, saying that the German economy cannot wait until next summer for a new government to be formed. “The vacuum into which Olaf Scholz has manoeuvred the country costs us jobs and affects our prosperity every day,” the party’s parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr said.
The left-liberal government collapsed last week following Scholz’s dismissal of his finance minister, Christian Lindner, the head of the FDP, the smallest coalition partner. Lindner’s departure was followed by the resignation of the other FDP ministers in the government. This left the government with a minority in the Bundestag, and not enough votes to pass legislation.
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 its stance on fiscal conservatism and its rejection of pro-migration and radical ‘Green’ climate policies had been ignored by its partners.
In an interview on Sunday, Scholz boasted that
without my repeated efforts to achieve cooperation and compromise, the government would not have lasted this long. It wouldn’t even have been formed.
The chancellor believes his Social Democrats could win the snap elections, even though they are only in third place in opinion polls, currently polling at 15%, a 17-point deficit compared to the CDU/CSU alliance, which now stands at 32% nationwide.
The runner-up spot is set to be taken by the anti-immigration AfD, which is at 19%. The Greens are at 10%, the left-wing nationalist Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht at 7%, and the liberal FDP could drop out of the parliament altogether with a low result of 4%.
Olaf Scholz and his Social Democrats were further accused of delaying tactics after the president of the German electoral commission warned the chancellor against holding elections too early, saying that setting “dates and deadlines” during the Christmas season or New Year’s Eve would make important election preparations “virtually impossible to realise.”
With a further technical-sounding excuse, Ruth Brand said that it was a “great challenge in today’s world to actually procure the paper and carry out the printing orders”.
The head of Germany’s largest ballot printer then said that holding a snap election in January could pose logistical issues because the short deadlines would allow for errors like misspellings of candidates and parties on ballot papers.
A snap election must be called within 60 days after the dissolution of the parliament, which has to follow within 21 days of a vote of confidence.
“The statements made by the election commissioner are scandalous and shameful. A country like Germany must be able to hold elections within sixty days,” said Carsten Linnemann, the general secretary of the CDU.
The party has questioned whether Ruth Brand’s statement was made independently, or whether the chancellor’s office or the Social Democrat-led Ministry of the Interior had exerted their influence on her. The CDU/CSU parliamentary group is requesting that Brand clarify her position in the parliament’s internal affairs committee on Wednesday.
Even the paper firms spoke out publicly to assure everyone that an early election would not fail due to a lack of paper. If ordered in time, the required amount for an early Bundestag election could be delivered, said Alexander von Reibnitz, the head of the country’s paper production industry.
