Analysis: Start with flaw – Merz ‘chancellor election was so dramatic

There was no such thing that a prospective coalition initially failed to choose the Chancellor. hours of uncertainty and blame were between the first and second ballot by Chancellor Merz.

Friedrich Merz knows defeats. However, he was probably unable to imagine that he will become the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic who is only elected in the second ballot. He won’t get rid of this flaw anymore – this realization was written in his face at the moment of defeat.

It is 10.06 a.m. when the new Bundestag president Julia Klöckner reads the number of votes in votes with a neutral voice – and postponed the sentence: “Friedrich Merz is not elected Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.”

As quietly as in that moment afterwards it is rare in the plenum.

A Worst-Case scenario

Serious faces at the Union and SPD. The worst case has occurred. AfD parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel grins and goes to the backbate of her faction.

The black and red majority was extremely scarce, everyone involved knew that. The coalition of the SPD and Union won around 45 percent of the vote in the Bundestag election – a much narrower base than the 69.4 percent of the last grand coalition with CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel, who, incidentally, attended the events today and quickly got up from the grandstand and left when the election defeat of its former adversary Merz became clear.

Resentment in both parties

The Bundestag belongs to 328 politicians from the CDU/CSU and SPD, Merz needed at least 316 of them for the so -called chancellor majority to be elected to be elected.

Such a high degree of approval is anything but a walk in two such different parties. Because SPD and Union, at least on their part of their parliamentary group, are difficult with this coalition under Merz, which also became clear with the Jusos and the Junge Union. But also in the middle of the CDU there was resentment about Merz’s turnaround in debt brake and state finances after the election.

The choice is secret, the renegade will remain secret.

Signal of a shaky majority

One or the other might want to give a memo at the start. However, the external impact is: Union and SPD do not even manage to organize a majority – that is the signal that is in the world from 10.06 a.m.

This signal of an extremely shaky majority, it will remain as a flaw of this new federal government: Does the coalition really have a stable working basis? Not to mention the internal loss of trust that this process triggered safely.

The mortgage of this coalition will remain, because it is precisely for this coalition to have controversial topics – from climate protection measures in the energy sector to “Taurus” deliveries to Ukraine.

“Just bad for the country”

A few minutes after the announcement of the first election result, the plenary is almost empty. Friedrich Merz had quickly disappeared together with his parliamentary group with a petrified expression, and the jacket was in a hurry. Previously, the former Greens boss Omid Nouripour had briefly approached him to recover a word of regret.

Because even on this memorable day, the Greens say that the country needs a stable government as quickly as possible, even if they criticize the coalition agreement in terms of content: “A failed chancellor election is simply bad for the country,” says Nouripour later on the sidelines of the plenary, he also sits as Vice President in the Bundestag Presidium.

Approval of the Greens and the left

The following follow: hours of the crisis sessions, first in the political groups, then Merz in the smallest round, also with the lawyers of the parliamentary group and the Bundestag president. Several hours will pass before you have sorted and have spoken black -red with green and left to change the rules of procedure – towards a quick second ballot on the same day.

The choice was not of course so quickly to be repeated, according to rules of procedure, it could not have taken place on Friday. But the negative headlines until Friday, nationally and internationally, while the German stock index (DAX) reacted on the day – you wanted to save yourself.

Left and Greens participated in the plan. Schwarz-Rot had not talked about the AfD about it, a two-thirds majority without AfD was enough in that case.

Appeals in the political groups

In the hours of uncertainty after the first ballot, there are mutual blame. MPs from Union and the SPD appear in front of the cameras at the parliamentary group level of the Reichstag building to assert that their parliamentary group was closed. One is aware of responsibility.

In the afternoon, when the second ballot starts, there will be almost 18 members of black and red who voted as a chancellor in the first ballot against Merz. The new Union faction leader Jens Spahn called into the microphone that he “appeals to everyone to become aware of special responsibility”.

A moving scene is created before the second ballot at 3:17 p.m. when Merz stands in the plenum alongside CSU man Alexander Dobrindt and Spahn at the Unionpul. Finally, she knocks on his arm with a “gets” gesture. You can feel the concern, Merz and thus the whole black and red coalition project could still fail at the last minute.

In the end, the smile of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier seems significantly relieved when he presented Merz the certificate shortly before 5 p.m.