German President dissolves parliament, snap elections due in Feb

Berlin: German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Friday dissolved the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, paving the way for early federal elections.

Steinmeier announced in Berlin that the snap elections will be held on February 23, as previously agreed by major political parties.

On Friday, Steinmeier stressed that a capable government with a reliable parliamentary majority is needed during these challenging times.

He said that new elections are the appropriate course of action for the country’s benefit, Xinhua news agency reported.

On December 16, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost in a vote of confidence in the Bundestag.

The move dissolved Scholz’s minority coalition government and triggered a process that led to early federal elections.

The confidence vote saw 207 parliament members expressing confidence in Scholz, with 394 voting against him, and 116 abstaining.

Such a vote had not taken place in Germany for almost two decades.

Scholz had requested the confidence vote the previous week, invoking Article 68 of the Basic Law, as the only viable way to trigger early elections. Major opposition parties had long called for this.

Although theoretically, Scholz could have continued in office without a majority, it would have been politically untenable as the Bundestag would have been unable to pass legislation.

Concerns had arisen that Scholz could unexpectedly win the vote. This scenario could have materialised if members of Scholz’s SPD and the Greens voted in favour, while the AfD also voted to support him to create chaos.

To prevent the possibility of unintended support from the AfD’s 76 members potentially pushing Scholz over the required 367 votes, the Green party leadership had advised its members to abstain.

The regular federal elections had originally been scheduled for September the following year. However, the so-called ‘traffic light coalition’ of the SPD, Greens, and FDP failed to agree on a joint budget for 2025. Disagreements arose over tax allocation, economic stimulus measures, and funding for investment.

At the height of the dispute, Chancellor Scholz had dismissed FDP’s Finance Minister Christian Lindner; subsequently, other FDP ministers resigned from the government to withdraw from the ruling coalition.

After losing the confidence vote, Scholz went to meet President Steinmeier, recommending the dissolution of the Bundestag.

Steinmeier had 21 days to decide whether to dissolve the parliament. He had previously stated that he would likely do so.

If the Bundestag was dissolved, new elections had to be held within 60 days. The SPD and CDU/CSU had proposed February 23 as the date for the election. Steinmeier would ultimately decide the final date.

Even after the dissolution of the Bundestag, the parliament remained functional. The Federal Chancellor, the government, and its ministers remained in office until the new Bundestag elected a new Chancellor the following year.

Previously, there had been five times in Germany’s history that a vote of confidence was called.

IANS