New elections: The path to this is not easy – but it is possible

In view of the ongoing crisis in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s (SPD) traffic light coalition, the opposition’s demands for new elections are becoming ever louder (also read about the latest clinch in the traffic light: “18 pages of explosives – this Lindner paper is a reckoning”). But in contrast to other parliaments around the world, there is practically only one way to dissolve the German Bundestag in the middle of the legislative period: if the Chancellor tells parliament Question of trust and does not receive a majority in the vote. Then, as the Basic Law states, “the Federal President can dissolve the Bundestag on the proposal of the Federal Chancellor.” In the history of the Federal Republic, some chancellors and their parties have taken this path in order to emerge stronger from new elections. Now, however, according to surveys, the SPD, Greens and FDP would have to fear severe losses in a federal election.

The Chancellor, the Bundestag and the Federal President can only initiate new elections together through a vote of confidence. At the beginning of a legislative period or if the position of chancellor is vacant for other reasons, the Federal President can also dissolve parliament if a newly elected candidate for chancellor does not find an absolute majority there despite repeated attempts.

The constitution does not allow the Bundestag to dissolve itself, nor does it permit dissolution by the Federal Chancellor or the Federal President alone. In 1949, the fathers and mothers of the Basic Law drew conclusions from the unstable conditions of the Weimar Republic (1918 to 1933). These and other requirements were intended to prevent frequent new elections, changes of government and blockades from making the country ungovernable. Instead, the popularly elected parliament and the government that emerged from it should be required to pull themselves together until the end of the four-year legislative period. The Bundestag will be regularly elected on September 28, 2025.

The Basic Law enables a change of government without a new parliamentary election through a so-called constructive vote of no confidence: A chancellor and his government can only be overthrown if the Bundestag elects a new chancellor with an absolute majority. Without such constructive action, Parliament cannot formally express no confidence in the government. The Federal President alone cannot replace the Chancellor. This also drew a lesson from the stalemate in the Weimar Republic, which had paved the way for the National Socialist dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.

In German history, chancellors have asked the question of confidence five times, i.e. the “request” to “express confidence” in them, as Article 68 of the Basic Law states. Only in two cases did the incumbents intend to secure the support of the parliamentary majority, as was originally intended: In 1982, Helmut Schmidt (SPD) had their confidence expressed in a coalition crisis – which did not prevent Schmidt from being elected in the same year a constructive vote of no confidence from the Bundestag was replaced by Helmut Kohl (CDU). In 2001, Gerhard Schröder (SPD) secured approval for the Bundeswehr’s controversial Afghanistan mission by combining this vote with a vote of confidence.

In the three remaining cases, chancellors used the vote of confidence as a gambit to initiate new elections: it was previously agreed that Willy Brandt (SPD) in 1972, Helmut Kohl (CDU), who had just come into office, in 1982, and Gerhard Schröder (SPD) in 2005, lost confidence votes. All three politicians acted in the hope of stabilizing their coalition in new elections. While Brandt and Kohl succeeded, Schröder failed: the SPD lost the federal election and became a junior partner in a grand coalition led by Angela Merkel (CDU). Although the respective federal presidents played along, the so-called “fake questions of trust” were criticized as an abuse of the Basic Law. But they ultimately received the blessing of the Federal Constitutional Court.