German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has lost a vote of no confidence, the election has been postponed until early next year.

Germany’s parliament accepted Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s invitation to withdraw its confidence in him and his government on Monday, paving the way for early elections on Feb. 23 because of the fall of his government.

Scholz’s three-party coalition fell apart last month after the pro-market Free Democrats resigned in succession over debt, leaving the Social Democrats and Greens without a parliamentary majority as Germany grapples with an ongoing economic crisis.

Under laws designed to prevent the instability that fueled the rise of fascism in the 1930s, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier can dissolve parliament and call an election if the chancellor calls, and loses, a vote of confidence.

GERMANY’S SCHOLZ CRIES FOR LEGISLATION VOTE AS COALITION GOVERNMENT FALLS.

The pre-voting debate also opened the door to serious election campaigns, with party leaders trading pots.

The chancellor and his opposition rival, Friedrich Merz, in a poll that suggested he might succeed him, accused each other of incompetence and lack of vision.

Scholz, who will lead an interim government until a new one is formed, has defended his record as a crisis leader who has faced economic and security emergencies caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

If he is given a second term, he has said he would invest more in Germany’s faltering infrastructure than the spending cuts he says lawmakers want.

“Disagreement may save money in the short term, but borrowing money for our future is out of reach,” said Scholz, who served four years as finance minister under the previous coalition with the Conservatives before becoming chancellor in 2021.

GERMAN CHANCELLOR SCHOLZ WARNS NEXT EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT AGAINST CONTACTING THE COURT OF SUPPORT

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks on the day of the vote of confidence in the lower house of the Bundestag in Berlin, Germany, on December 16, 2024. (Axel Schmidt)

Merz told Scholz that his spending plans would burden future generations and accused him of failing to deliver on promises of retaliatory weapons after the start of the war in Ukraine.

“Taking credit at the expense of the new generation, spending money — and you didn’t say the word ‘competition,'” Merz said.

He did not mention the constitutional spending limit, a measure designed to ensure fiscal responsibility that many economists blame for the faltering state of Germany’s infrastructure.

Conservatives Clear Lead in Opinion Polls

The Conservatives have a comfortable, or narrow, lead of more than 10 points over the SPD in the majority vote. Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is lagging behind Scholz’s party, while the Greens are in fourth place.

The main parties have refused to govern with the AfD, but its presence complicates parliamentary calculations, creating weak coalitions.

Germany’s Olaf Scholz has lost a vote of confidence in the German parliament, paving the way for a snap election to replace the chancellor. (Lisi Niesner)

Scholz outlined a list of measures that could pass with opposition support before the election, including $11 billion in tax cuts and increases in child benefits that have been agreed by former coalition partners.

The strikers also indicated that they could reverse measures to better protect the Constitutional Court from the machinations of a future populist or anti-democratic government and to extend the heavily subsidized transport ticket.

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Measures to ease unintended burdens on ratepayers could also pass if state governments agree, but Merz has rejected Green’s proposal to lower electricity rates, saying he wants a new energy policy.

Robert Habeck, the Greens’ chancellor-nominee, said that was a worrying sign for German democracy, given the growing likelihood in a fractured political landscape that different parties would once again govern together.

“It is unlikely that the next government will be easy,” said Habeck.

AfD leader Alice Weidel has called for all Syrian refugees in Germany to be sent back following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.