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Well I guess now we can say almost certainly that none of them voted for him the second time around either which was predictable.

The AfD doesn't need to seem reliable, trustworthy and strong.

Like Trump, they thrive on chaos and a loss of trust in democracy itself.

I don't think that this will happen. The Afd was already propagandising heavily against the CDU and Merz, it wouldn't fit their narrative.

Edit: Afd just said they'll vote for Merz. Guess I was wrong.

And secret deals with Merz make the AfD seem reliable, trustworthy and strong, how? If anything that would strengthen the left.

In my opinion it would show the opposite.

All parties except for the AfD would think he did a secret deal with them.

Because he already did such a deal with the AfD against the last administration.

So he'd be technically chancellor, the AfD would applaud and laugh sarcastically, and he'd have lost the trust of all his allies.

I don‘t have a crystal ball but I don‘t think that will happen because of the chance it could really enable Merz and split the AfD more than it splits the rest. It could show that Merz has the Bundestag under control after all and that‘s the last thing the AfD needs right now.

On a roll downhill, maybe.

If the AfD votes *for* Merz in the second round, the parlament will probably dissolve into chaos very quickly.

Fair point. An unpopular FDP politician is probably a lot easer to control than a Merz though. This was definitely a calculated move. Especially since the AfD is very strong in Thuringia anyway. They are a lot weaker in der Bundestag still so they will likely oppose any candidate the CDU brings forward right now.

See the Thuringen government crisis, where AfD, CDU and FDP voted together to topple the former state minister president in favor of a guy from the FDP that only made it into parliament by a dozen votes.

It has precedent that the AfD will vote to enable an unpopular candidate in order to mock the representative democracy.

Nah, they hate compromises and voting for anyone who isn’t in their party is by definition a compromise. Also the bigger the shit show the better for them. Actively sabotaging any process always works in their favor. Especially here. Sudden reelections would be the perfect gift to them now to get around a ban of their party and this makes that a little more likely.

Ah right, that makes sense, thanks! (Thanks to the other repliers as well.)

Two reasons. First, the required majority can be lowered to vote him in with a simple majority, if no absolute majority can be achieved (this will not happen right away). Second, the members who broke rank probably only wanted to send a message, so it's likely that they'll change their vote back to the party line (this may happen fairly soon).

For the second round he would once again require 316 "yes"-votes (50% +1 vote) of the entire parliament. It's possible that the first round was intended as a warning since cdu and SPD have a majority.

In a third round he would only need the majority of votes the MPs that are present during the vote.

Because there a "phases" for the election of the chancellor. The first one just failed. We are now in the second one where the parlament can vote again (once or as many times as they like) if Merz isn't elected after 14 days we will enter phase 3.

The big difference then beeing the needed majority changing from absolute to relative. Merz already had the relativ majority in this first round so it is more or less sure that he will get at least this numbers and will get elected at this point.

In theory this "relative win" could then be vetoed by the federal president but again unlikely with Steinmeier (SPD and big advocate of Union + SPD governments) being in this position.

Do you know what makes people say he will probably be voted in in a later round? We don't really know anything about why coalition party members voted against, right? Is it just that a reasonable explanation is that people wanted to keep him on his toes, but that's that?

Also see the Thuringen government crisis, where AfD, CDU and FDP voted together to topple the former state minister president in favor of a guy from the FDP that only made it into parliament by a dozen votes.

So it has precedent that the AfD will vote to enable an unpopular candidate in order to mock the representative democracy.

Worst possible outcome would be if in the 2nd vote he gets a majority that shows all of the AfD voted for him, too.

Especially since he already did a back room deal to get their support in a vote before.

No one would believe him when he says he didn't make a deal with them.

For more context:

Both parties together have a majority and coaltion talks have already been done. If every single party member votes yes, this should be no problem. In theory.

This result shows how massively unpopular Merz really is, going down in history as a failure BEFORE he even got a chance to fuck up at his actual job.

He will probably be voted in during the second (or even third) round, but this may sow discontent and suspicion in the parties. The vote was anonymous, so you cant easily figure out who broke the line, potentially leading to poisoning the coalition.

Either way, we now have Friedrich "Zweite Wahl" Merz

Edit: Spelling

Oof. First time this happened in German history. He'll probably get voted in in the 2nd or 3rd vote, but this sure sets the tone for the new government.


!1000054731


First AfD is officially acknowledged of being far right extremist now this? Dare I say we‘re on a roll after a really shitty election?

Semi-related, but maybe interesting.

Tuesday's vote was held on the eve of the 80th anniversary of Germany's unconditional surrender in World War II. The ballots are secret and cast in the restored Reichstag.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/05/06/friedrich-merz-s-bid-to-become-germany-s-10th-chancellor-fails-first-vote_6740970_4.html


Coalition talks were sh*t? no surprise. I bet majority of those votes were from AfD :P

Cringe