On Friday, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier dissolved the parliament and set February 23 as the election date in the country after Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition collapsed earlier. In December, Scholz lost a confidence vote and was leading a minority government following the three-party coalition's collapse on November 6. This came in the wake of Scholz firing his finance minister in a dispute over how to revitalize Germany's stagnant economy. Leaders of several major parties then agreed that a parliamentary election should be held on February 23, seven months earlier than originally planned.
Since the post-World War II constitution didn't allow the Bundestag to dissolve itself, it was up to Steinmeier to decide whether to dissolve parliament and call an election. He had 21 days to make that decision. Once parliament is dissolved, the election must be held within 60 days.
Scholz, who headed the minority government, got the support of only 207 lawmakers in the 733-seat lower house with 394 voting against him while 116 abstained. During the debate, Scholz, a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party, had pitched the election as something that would "define the future of Germany."
He assured that Germany's economy would be brought into the modern era through massive investments with promises such as raising the minimum wage nationally, reducing VAT on foodstuffs, and relaxing the country's debt rules.
Steinmeier warns about outside interference
Steinmeier warned about outside interference in the poll, saying it is “a danger to democracy, whether it is covert, as was evidently the case recently in the Romanian elections, or open and blatant, as is currently being practised particularly intensively on platform X.”
A top Romanian court annulled the first round of the country's presidential election, days after allegations emerged that Russia ran a coordinated online campaign to promote the far-right outsider who won the first round. The campaign is already well underway. Polls show Scholz's party trailing the conservative opposition Union bloc led by Friedrich Merz.
Vice Chancellor also in the race
Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck of the environmentalist Greens, the remaining partner in Scholz's government, is also bidding for the top job — though his party is further back. If recent polls hold up, the likely next government would be led by Merz as chancellor in coalition with at least one other party.
Key issues include immigration, how to get the sluggish economy going, and how best to aid Ukraine in its struggle against Russia. The populist, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which is polling strongly, has nominated Alice Weidel as its candidate for chancellor but has no chance of taking the job because other parties refuse to work with it.
Germany's electoral system traditionally produces coalitions, and polls show no party anywhere near an absolute majority on its own. The election is expected to be followed by weeks of negotiations to form a new government.
It's only the fourth time that the Bundestag has been dissolved ahead of schedule under Germany's post-World War II constitution. It happened under Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1972, Helmut Kohl in 1982 and Gerhard Schroeder in 2005. Schroeder used the confidence vote to engineer an early election narrowly won by centre-right challenger Angela Merkel.
(With agency inputs)
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