BERLIN – The German parliament accepted Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s invitation to withdraw its confidence in him and his government on Monday, clearing the way for an early election on Feb. 23 necessitated by the collapse of his government.
Mr. Scholz’s three-party coalition fell apart last month after the pro-market Free Democrats quit in a row over debt, leaving his Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens without a parliamentary majority just as Germany faces a deepening economic crisis.
Under rules designed to prevent the instability that facilitated the rise of fascism in the 1930s, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier can only dissolve parliament and call an election if the chancellor calls for, and loses, a confidence vote.
The debate preceding the vote also opened serious campaigning for the election, with party leaders trading ill-tempered barbs.
Mr. Scholz, who will head a caretaker government until a new one can be formed, defended his record as a crisis leader who had dealt with the economic and security emergency triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
If given a second term, he said, he would invest heavily in Germany’s creaking infrastructure rather than making the spending cuts he said the conservatives wanted. — Reuters
