The conservative leader had been expected to smoothly win the vote to become Germany’s 10th chancellor since World War II. No other postwar candidate for chancellor has failed to win on the first ballot.
Merz received 325 votes in the second ballot.
He needed a majority of 316 out of 630 votes but only received 310 in the first round — well short of the 328 seats held by his coalition.
Because the votes were secret ballots, it was not immediately clear — and might never be known — who had defected from Merz’s camp.
Merz’s coalition is led by his center-right Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union. They are joined by the center-left Social Democrats led by outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who lost the national election in February.
Upon announcing the second vote, the head of the Union bloc in parliament, Jens Spahn, said, “The whole of Europe, perhaps even the whole world, is watching this second round of elections.”
Germany, the most populous member state of the 27-nation European Union, has the continent’s biggest economy and serves as a diplomatic heavyweight. The new chancellor’s in-tray would include the war in Ukraine and the Trump administration’s confrontational trade policy on top of domestic issues, such as the rise of a far-right, anti-immigrant party. (AP)
