Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz has lost a vote of no confidence in parliament on Monday, in a move that will clear the way for early elections next year.
The Bundestag vote, which Mr Scholz had expected to lose, allows President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to dissolve the legislature and formally order an election, which is expected on February 23.
Out of the Bundestag deputies, 394 voted against Mr Scholz while only 207 expressed confidence in the chancellor, with 116 abstentions. The confidence vote was needed because post-World War II Germany’s constitution doesn’t allow the Bundestag to dissolve itself.
Mr Scholz, of the Social Democrats, led a three-party coalition from 2021 until it collapsed in early November, when he fired finance minister Christian Lindner, head of the Free Democrats, losing his majority in the lower house of parliament in the process.
His party lags badly in the polls behind conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union, the party of former chancellor Angela Merkel.
The political turbulence comes as Germany faces political and economic challenges, including high energy prices. Berlin also faces major geopolitical risk as it confronts Russia over the Ukraine war and as US president-elect Donald Trump's looming return heightens uncertainty over future Nato and trade ties.
In his push for re-election, Mr Scholz called for massive new spending on infrastructure and defence. “It’s high time to invest forcefully into our country,” he told lawmakers ahead of the vote. “We must turn the switch and this means now.”
In the parliamentary debate, Mr Merz lashed out at Mr Scholz, saying “you are leaving the country in one of the biggest economic crises of the postwar period.”
With campaigning just getting under way, the conservative CDU/CSU alliance under Mr Merz leads with support at around 31 per cent, the far-right Alternative for Germany is second with 19.8 per cent and the SPD third at 17 per cent, polls show.
The Greens are fourth with 11.2 per cent and the BSW, a new far-left party founded in January, fifth at 7.5 per cent. Mr Lindner’s FDP remains in danger of missing the 5 per cent threshold for getting into parliament with 4.9 per cent.
