German conservative alliance leader Friedrich Merz failed to secure the necessary votes in the first round of the chancellor election held in the Bundestag on Tuesday (May 6), dealing an unexpected setback to the new coalition government he formed with the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Merz had expected to win majority support in the parliament, but the Speaker, Julia Kloeckner, announced that he only received 310 votes out of the 630 parliamentarians, falling short of the 316 votes required to be elected as chancellor.
In this anonymously voted election, 310 members of parliament supported Merz, while 307 voted against him, according to reports from Agence France-Presse.
The 69-year-old Merz leads the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) alliance, which emerged as the largest party with 28.5% of the vote in the February 2025 election, but still not enough to govern alone, necessitating the formation of a coalition government.
On Monday, the alliance officially signed a coalition agreement with the center-left Social Democratic Party. The SPD received only 16.4% of the votes in this election, marking its worst post-war performance.
According to Deutsche Welle, the coalition composed of the CDU, CSU, and SPD has a total of 328 seats, which should have been enough to support Merz’s election. However, he unexpectedly lost in the first round of voting.
Speaker Kloeckner stated that the session would be paused to allow party consultations on the next steps. Under parliamentary rules, there is a 14-day period for the parliament to conduct another vote to elect Merz or another candidate as chancellor. The next round of voting could possibly begin as early as later Tuesday.