Incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suffered an embarrassing setback when he fell short of a majority in an initial vote in the lower house of parliament, potentially delaying his swearing-in as head of government due to take place later on Tuesday.
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.
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.
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.