Merz becomes Chancellor after a minor hiccup

Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democrats, which had won the election edging past the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), and forged an alliance with the Social Democrats because he did not have enough numbers on his own, faced a minor setback when he did not get the required number of votes from the allies.

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It was the first time that a Chancellor-designate failed to get through the formality of a formal election in the Bundestag, the lower house of German parliament. But he got it through a second time, which was part of the procedure. There was speculation, both after the first round when he failed to get through and after the second round when he got through that the two mainstream allies were not on the same page, and that there were some chinks in the armour.

This was not the first time that the two major ideological rivals had to work together. It had happened in the long-serving Chancellor of the Christian Democrats, Angela Merkel. But she was seen as the political leader who could manage to keep the two parties with differing ideologies for the good of Germany.