The German Bundestag in Berlin.
Credit...John MacDougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Germany Will Hold Snap Election in February

After the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition, the balloting will be held on Feb. 23, about seven months before it had been scheduled.

by · NY Times

A week after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition fell apart over next year’s budget, his party and the main opposition, the conservative Christian Democratic Union, have agreed to hold a snap election on Feb. 23.

The agreement, which The New York Times confirmed on Tuesday, comes as all parties have fired up their campaigns for an early election, which will come about seven months before it had been scheduled.

Last week Mr. Scholz fired his finance minister, Christian Lindner, leader of the pro-business Free Democratic Party. The move effectively dissolved the coalition and sent shock waves through Germany.

Mr. Scholz had announced likely elections in March, but the opposition pushed for an earlier date, arguing that the chancellor would be unable to do much between now and then with a minority government and did not have enough passive support in Parliament to pass any new laws.

The date for the new election comes as German leaders gird for an intense campaign over how to restart an ailing economy — and prepare for President-elect Donald J. Trump’s second term in office.

On Sunday, during his first televised interview since the end of the coalition, Mr. Scholz said that he intended to campaign for a second term.

“I would like to be re-elected,” Mr. Scholz said in the hourlong interview on German public television. Mr. Scholz said he believed his Social Democrats would do well, though they are currently polling at around 16 percent. “No one should expect the election to turn out the way everyone has pictured it,” he said, conceding an uphill battle.

For decades, German political parties have had to find coalition partners to ensure a majority in Parliament. If Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats do not improve their vote share significantly, they could only become a junior party in a coalition, meaning Mr. Scholz would not get a second term as chancellor. (He succeeded Angela Merkel of the Christian Democrats, in 2021.)

In the week since Mr. Scholz’s announcement, another of his coalition partners, Robert Habeck, the Green economic minister, who has been pushing for the transformation toward green sources of energy, announced his own run for the chancellery. While the move was widely expected, it is yet another sign that parties are getting ready for a fast and intense campaign.

For his part, Mr. Lindner of the Free Democratic Party, which currently polls at three to four percent, has told reporters that he’s looking to win at least 10 percent of voter support in the election. On Tuesday, he said he hoped his party would become a junior coalition partner in the next government, which could enable it to pass his changes.

Since the coalition fell apart, Mr. Lindner has claimed that he was let go by Mr. Scholz because he was not willing to authorize extra spending that would have been unconstitutional under Germany’s strict borrowing limit.

The fight over scheduling the new election began in earnest even before Mr. Scholz’s new minority-government cabinet was sworn in last week.

Friedrich Merz, the current leader of the Christian Democrats, had demanded Mr. Scholz bring a vote of confidence to Parliament this week, which would have triggered a new election, possibly in January. But members of Mr. Scholz’s party warned that calling the election too early could lead to problems.

Warning from Ruth Brand, the federal election commissioner, that preparations for the election could not be rushed and that Germany might not have enough paper for the ballots needed, seemed to bolster Mr. Scholz’s case for elections in March.

“When determining the election date, we must take concerns and advice from the practical side of the election organization seriously,” said Johannes Fechner, a parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats.

Mr. Scholz’s chief of staff, Wolfgang Schmidt, argued that holding elections during the Christmas season would mean that all subsequent elections would have to be held then, too.

“What would the results of a survey be that asked, ‘Do you want to have a general election every four years at Christmas in the years to come?’ ” he asked rhetorically in a post on X.

But after less than a week of intense pressure, resistance broke down and Mr. Scholz indicated during his interview Sunday that he was not sticking to his March timetable. “If that’s how everyone feels, it’s not a problem for me bring the confidence vote before Christmas,” he said. If Mr. Scholz fails his confidence vote in Parliament — which is likely — in the middle of December, it would set the stage for the Feb. 23 election.

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