In Germany, Olaf Scholz says he is ready for a vote of confidence before the end of the year with a view to early elections

The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said he was ready, on Sunday November 10, under conditions, to submit this year to a vote of confidence by deputies with a view to accelerating the organization of early legislative elections. This statement follows the breakdown of his government coalition on Wednesday.

“It’s not a problem for me to ask the question of trust before Christmas” in the Bundestag, if the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the conservative opposition agree on this, Mr. Scholz said in an interview with public television ARD. On Wednesday, he mentioned the date of January 15 to raise the question of confidence with legislative elections at the end of March. “I also want this to go quickly”he declared. “Germany urgently needs a new democratically legitimized government”he added.

After the vote of confidence, which the chancellor is expected to lose, no longer having a sufficient majority in Parliament, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will have twenty-one days to dissolve the Bundestag and new elections must take place within sixty days. .

Since the explosion on Wednesday of the government coalition initially formed by the SPD, the party of Olaf Scholz, the ecologists and the liberals, due to deep disagreements over economic policy, pressure has been mounting on the chancellor to organize without delay elections. This crisis comes at a time when there are many challenges for Europe's largest economy, on the verge of recession and which fears the consequences of a return of Donald Trump at the head of the United States.

Conservatives leading the polls

In an interview with the weekly Sternthe CDU (conservative) candidate for chancellor, Friedrich Merz, had called on Olaf Scholz to seek a vote of confidence on Wednesday, the day the chancellor planned to make a government declaration in the Bundestag. Merz had also called for elections on January 19, while his party is leading in the polls.

Merz has made a rapid vote of confidence in the Bundestag a precondition for the CDU to support a series of important bills that the government wants to pass through parliament before the elections.

On Monday, the federal director of elections, Ruth Brand, is due to hold a virtual meeting with her regional colleagues, with the aim of studying the organization of the vote.

According to a poll published Sunday in the German weekly Picture on Sunday carried out by the Insa institute, The CDU remains the largest political force with an unchanged score of 32%, followed by the far-right AfD party at 19%. The SPD comes in behind at 15%. The two other members of Olaf Scholz's ex-coalition are credited with 10% for the Greens and 4% for the Liberals, i.e. below the threshold of 5% necessary to remain in the Bundestag.