Pages

Friday, 8 November 2024

Scholz Fires Lindner and Collapses His Coalition, Now Wants To Lead a Minority Government – But German Opposition and Majority of Voters Want Confidence Vote and Snap Elections

 

Hours after the historic Donald J. Trump victory in the US Presidential Elections was announced, the most powerful European country’s government began to unravel.

Germany’s unpopular three-party coalition finally collapsed on Wednesday (6) evening after Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner over constant disagreements on spending and economic reforms.

After the firing Lindner’s fiscally conservative Free Democratic Party (FDP) exited the coalition, forcing Scholz to call for a confidence vote – but he only wants it to happen on Jan. 15.

When Scholz loses that vote, a snap election is set to take place by March.

 

But opposition parties want the confidence vote called at once, and survey conducted by the polling agency Forsa for television channels RTL and NTV showed that 73% of German citizens support the collapse of the ruling “Traffic Light” coalition,

Reuters reported:

“The chancellor said the minority government would be made up of his Social Democrats and the Greens until early next year — even as the leader of the biggest opposition bloc in parliament, Friedrich Merz from the center-right Christian Democrats, called for an immediate no-confidence vote and new elections.”

Scholz insists that he does not want to call a vote of confidence before mid-January.

“’The citizens will soon have the opportunity to decide anew how to proceed’, the chancellor said, according to the German news agency dpa. ‘That is their right. I will therefore put the vote of confidence to the Bundestag at the beginning of next year’.”

 

A meeting with Christian-Democrat leader Friedrich Merz ended after less than an hour and brought about no compromise.

Merz has categorically rejected a wait to hold a vote of confidence only in January.

“’The coalition no longer has a majority in the German Bundestag, and we therefore call on the chancellor to call a vote of confidence immediately, or at the latest by the beginning of next week’, Merz said. ‘We simply cannot afford to have a government without a majority in Germany for several months now, and then campaign for several more months, and then possibly conduct coalition negotiations for several weeks’, Merz added.”

Watch: German Giovernment collapsed because of Ukraine.

No comments:

Post a Comment