Rebels humiliate Merz as he wins chancellorship at second attempt

The German parliament formally elected Friedrich Merz as the country's 10th chancellor since the second world war yesterday, despite a humiliating loss in the first round of voting that raised troubling doubts about the stability of the next coalition government.

- Deborah Cole

Merz secured 325 votes in the second round, just above the necessary 316. Earlier, 18 rebels from the newly formed alliance between his conservatives and the Social Democrats had secretly voted to deny him a majority in the first round.

"Madam speaker, thank you for the trust," a visibly relieved Merz told the Bundestag president, Julia Klöckner, after she announced the result. "I accept the election."

Commentators had called the first round a "complete catastrophe" for Merz and "a punch to the stomach".

The 69-year-old leads the centre-right CDU/CSU bloc, which won February's snap election with a disappointing 28.6%.

The Social Democrats, now junior partners in government, turned in their worst performance in more than a century in the election, with just over 16% of the vote.

Together they have only a slim majority to pass a reform agenda in the Bundestag, where the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) forms the biggest opposition bloc.