Germany is a nation on the brink. On Tuesday, perhaps unwittingly, a handful of members of parliament decided to see how much further they could push it.
Tuesday’s vote was supposed to be the simplest of formalities. The new German government formed after February’s election was to be sworn in. Its parliamentary majority seemed solid. The coalition agreements had been made, the documents signed. Never in the history of the postwar German republic had a chancellor-in-waiting failed to be elected on the first ballot.
On Tuesday, Friedrich Merz failed on the first ballot.
Why We Wrote This
The new German Chancellor stumbled at the outset, losing his first parliamentary vote in a shock upset. But he survived. Will he learn from his mistakes?
With speed suitable to the shock, a second ballot was called within hours, and this time, Mr. Merz sailed through with the near-full support of his coalition.
But the setback matters. This German government faces enormous challenges. The German economy has atrophied; the immigration process is slow, unpopular, and has been punctuated by violent attacks by asylum-seekers; the coalition to support Ukraine – perhaps Europe’s most important common endeavor – is sputtering.
And over all, United States President Donald Trump is throwing decades-old alliances into doubt and promising the last thing that Germany needs: a trade war.
The government has crucial work to do, and if it fails to make headway, there is a strong sense that the political winner will be the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which a key government office classified as a right-wing extremist group last Friday.
Mr. Merz’ stumble at the first step raises doubts as to whether he and his new government are up to the job.
Who is to blame?
The situation is all the more confounding because, as of yet, no one knows who the defectors were. The ballot for chancellor is secret, which means political Berlin has been hurled into a who-dunnit worthy of Miss Marple. Were they liberal Social Democrats, nodding to disgruntled young voters? Or were they conservative stalwarts of Mr. Merz’ Christian Democratic party, angry that their leader had broken with decades of tradition to significantly ramp up deficit spending?
The suspects are many, not least because Mr. Merz has made enemies. On the eve of the February election, he deliberately antagonized the Social Democratic Party in a speech full of invective that many thought went beyond the bounds of acceptable campaign rhetoric. The SPD is now his coalition partner.
Others were appalled that in January he sought the support of the AfD to pass a symbolic immigration bill. All the centrist parties have refused to work with the AfD because many see it as espousing a racist, anti-immigrant ideology.
The former investment banker is also known for wanting things his way. “Merz is not the most popular person,” says Markus Ziener, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. “He has a very autocratic approach. These kinds of things don’t go well. He needs to adjust.”
A silver lining
Yet amid mysteries of Tuesday’s ballot, there is a chance that the failed vote is less of a catastrophe than it first appeared. It is possible that it was even something of a mistake. “It’s possible [the dissenters] were just trying to make life hard for him, but they didn’t realize what they were doing,” says Mr. Ziener.
With the secret ballot, he adds, a few protest votes can suddenly and unexpectedly add up to failure. The fact that party leaders were very quickly able to corral the needed votes suggests the protest was not a concerted strategy to bring down Mr. Merz.
What it does suggest, however, is a lack of governing savvy. Both Mr. Merz and his cabinet ministers are inexperienced in political leadership. “This might just be a neophyte mistake” by party officials failing to ensure that they had the votes they needed, says Eric Langenbacher, a German political analyst at Georgetown University in Washington. “The larger point here is that German politics works because of party discipline.”
Mr. Merz’s governing coalition is not large. Every vote will be crucial. “What’s most important is that you have to do your homework. You have to make sure you have the votes,” Dr. Langenbacher adds.
If the government learns that lesson, Tuesday’s events could have a silver lining. They have shown potentially rogue legislators just how thin the margins for this government’s survival and success are. And they showed Mr. Merz what he needs to do, both in mending fences and mastering the mechanics of political leadership.
“I hope it’s a wakeup call to do the hard work,” Dr. Langenbacher says. “But he’s got a steep learning curve.”
