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Friedrich Merz became Germany’s chancellor Tuesday after winning a second round following his shock defeat in the initial vote.
The conservative leader had been considered a shoo-in, having spent months negotiating with coalition partners and outlining a mammoth fiscal expansion.
While Merz eventually managed to secure the chancellorship, his initial failure could cast a “dark cloud” over his leadership, Deutsche Welle wrote.
SIGNALS
What exactly went wrong? Merz may never know
Because the German parliament’s votes for chancellor are secret, no one knows who from the majority coalition dissented. German political analysts have posited that members of the center-left party that Friedrich Merz entered with into government may have triggered the rebellion: They could hold a grudge because of Merz’s attacks against them when he was opposition leader. Or it may have been members of Merz’s own conservative party, “angry at the fact that he has already broken his central campaign promise and taken on historic new levels of debt,” British-German journalist Jörg Luyken wrote in his newsletter, adding that rebels likely emerged from both the furthest left and furthest right flanks of the incoming centrist coalition.
Political chaos tempers economic, defense ambitions
Friedrich Merz had pledged swift action on the faltering economy and illegal migration, as well as new defense and infrastructure projects, but had already dropped campaign pledges to strike his coalition agreement. Now, the first failed vote has laid bare the fragility of Merz’s majority just at the moment that his term kicks off, analysts said. Such a vulnerable position could imperil his ambitious policy agenda: “The urgently needed structural reforms already seem to be receding into the distance,” ZDF Heute wrote. The German business community is watching anxiously: The country’s main stock index plummeted Tuesday after the first failed vote.
‘Germany is back!’ faces a shaky start
The conservative leader’s shaky election as chancellor could damage his reputation beyond the country’s borders: “The whole of Europe looked to Berlin today in the hope that Germany would reassert itself as an anchor of stability,” an expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations told The iPaper. “That hope has been dashed.” Meanwhile, Ukraine is relying on Friedrich Merz to play a leading role in bolstering European support for Kyiv. A former German defense minister wrote that while unpopular, Merz should prioritize securing financial support for Ukraine. European leaders were nonetheless quick to bring Merz into the fold: Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni proposed a closer trade partnership after his win, AFP reported.