Coalition collapse: Tracking the path to Germany's snap elections
8 November
Economy minister Robert Habeck says he wants to lead Green Party in election
Economy and climate minister Habeck wants to lead the Green Party in the upcoming snap election, the current vice chancellor announces in a video. Party delegates will have to agree on his candidacy at a party conference at the end of next week.
SPD supporters favour defence minister Pistorius as future party leader – survey
A majority (58 percent) of SPD supporters say current defence minister Boris Pistorius should lead the party at the next elections, compared to 30 percent in favour of current chancellor Olaf Scholz, according to a Forsa poll published by the Oldenburger Onlinezeitung.
7 November
Conservative opposition leader Merz calls for enabling snap election immediately
The leader of Germany's largest opposition party, Friedrich Merz from the conservative Christian Democrat Union (CDU), rejects Olaf Scholz's schedule for enabling snap elections in spring 2025. He instead said the chancellor should initiate a vote of confidence in parliament the week after his government collapsed to allow a snap election to take place as early as January 2025. By leading a minority government of his SPD and the Green Party, Scholz needs the votes of other parties in parliament to get several pending policy proposals across the line that his coalition government had prepared before it broke up.
However, a meeting between Merz and Scholz on the day after the government's break-up ends without a clear result regarding the snap election's roadmap. The CDU said it would assess which policy proposals it would be ready to help Scholz get across the line before the end of the year if he agrees to quickly pave the way for elections.
Most Germans in favour of quick snap election
Almost two-thirds (65%) of respondents in a survey by public broadcaster ARD say they favour quick snap elections after the collapse of Scholz's government coalition. One third (33%) approve of the chancellor's plan to hold a vote of confidence in mid-January to enable an election in March. The opposition instead has called for holding a vote of confidence in the week after the government's collapse and a snap election in January.
A clear majority of respondents (59%) say they welcome the coalition government's early end. However, most do not think that chancellor Scholz and his SPD party is to blame for the collapse: 40 percent said finance minister Christian Lindner's FDP has undermined the coalition, while 26 percent blamed the Green Party and 19 percent the SPD.
Conservatives enter election race with clear lead in polls
Friedrich Merz's conservative alliance of the CDU and the Christian Social Union (CSU) enjoys a clear lead in the polls, and the opposition leader stands a good chance of becoming Germany's next chancellor. A poll conducted by Forsa asking which party people would vote for if parliamentary elections were held next Sunday that was released on the day after the coalition's collapse yielded the following results:
CDU/CSU: 32%
SPD: 17%
AfD: 17%
Green Party: 11%
BSW: 6%
Left Party: 3%
FDP: 3%
Others: 10%
While the CDU/CSU leads in the polls, it will likely need to form a coalition government with other parties to secure a majority in parliament. Since the leader of the CDU's conservative Bavarian sister party CSU, Markus Söder, has ruled out entering into a coalition with the Green Party at the federal level and the conservatives also reject cooperating with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Merz may have to rely on the help of Scholz's SPD after the snap election to become chancellor.
This would be the case if the CDU's traditional ally, the FDP, fail to clear the five-percent threshold required to enter parliament. A coalition with the new nationalist-left and pro-Russia Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which was formed by former members of the Left Party, and the CDU/CSU is also highly unlikely.
6 November
Chancellor Scholz's 'traffic light coalition' collapses after sacking of finance minister
Chancellor Scholz sacked his finance minister, Christian Lindner, after a long dispute over Germany's budget and economic policies and initiated the end of his coalition government. The step came on the same day on which the re-election of Donald Trump as U.S. president sent shockwaves through European capitals. It immediately weakened the EU's largest economy's ability to act, as the departure of Lindner's Free Democrats (FDP) from the 'traffic light coalition,' named after the parties' colours with Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) and the Green Party, means the chancellor no longer has a majority in parliament.
In his address after Lindner's sacking, Scholz proposed to form a minority government with the Greens to adopt several key policy proposals before the end of the year by forging majorities for each one of them in parliament. Besides preventing an agreement on a budget for 2025, the coalition’s collapse means that many crucial decisions, including on climate and energy policy, remain open in Germany, leading to uncertainty for its citizens, companies and European partners.
The chancellor said he would initiate a vote of confidence in parliament in mid-January, a step formally required to dissolve parliament and pave the way to the next election. According to Scholz, the snap election should take place in March 2025, roughly six months before Germany initially planned to pick a new government.
