Friedrich Merz after a difficult choice of Chancellor: “What kind of day”

The newly elected Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) commented on his difficult election in the Bundestag when handing over to the Chancellery. “What a day – with some surprises,” said Merz after his chancellor’s election, which was initially failed in the first ballot.

However, it is now “good that Germany has a federal government again with a parliamentary majority”. His government of the Union and the SPD will “become a coalition from the middle of the political spectrum”.

His SPD predecessor Olaf Scholz said at the appointment that when he took office three and a half years ago, the then Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) told him that “one did not know what would happen until evening.” Scholz added: “She was right, it wasn’t just today.”

Merz was only elected Chancellor on Tuesday in the second ballot. This has never existed in the history of the Federal Republic.

The day in parliament was “an honest day”, said Merz in the evening in the ARD “focal point”. However, the majority in the second ballot was “a confidence in the coalition”, he continued. “I have no doubt that we will work confidently in this coalition”.

The fact that there was a second ballot at all and that the political groups decided to exception the rules of procedure is “proof that we have stable parliamentary democracy”. Merz continued to say that he did not want to guess who the voice refused to do. “I don’t know the motifs and will probably never get to know them,” he said.