German chancellor loses confidence vote, paving the way for early election

Germany is on course for an early election in February after Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote in parliament.

Of the 717 MPs who voted in the lower house, or Bundestag, the country's leader won the support of 207, while 394 went against him, and there were 116 abstentions.

That left him far short of the majority of 367 needed to win.

Mr Scholz, leader of Germany's centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), had governed as the head of a fractious three-party coalition until it collapsed last month after he sacked his finance minister.

He had argued with Christian Lindner over how to kick-start Germany's stagnant economy, the largest in Europe.

Mr Lindner and his colleagues in the pro-business Free Democrats Party (FDP) promptly quit the coalition, leaving the SPD and their remaining partner, the Greens, without a majority in parliament.

Several major party leaders have since agreed to bring parliamentary elections forward seven months to 23 February.

Germany's constitution does not allow the Bundestag to dissolve itself, so a confidence vote was needed to set in motion the early election.

Mr Scholz had been expected to lose the vote as the SPD holds only 207 of the 733 seats in the chamber and the Greens had planned to abstain.

Germany's President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has three weeks to decide whether to dissolve the Bundestag.

Once parliament is dissolved, the election must be held within 60 days.

Polls show Mr Scholz's party trailing behind his centre-right challenger, Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and Union, the main opposition grouping.

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Vice chancellor Robert Habeck, whose Greens are further back, is also bidding for the top job.

The far-right Alternative for Germany, which is polling strongly, has nominated Alice Weidel as its candidate for chancellor, but is thought to have no chance of taking the job because other parties refuse to work with it.

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