(Adnkronos) – Chancellor Olaf Scholz will today submit a formal request to the German parliament for a vote of confidence in his government, thus paving the way for early elections scheduled for February. Scholz has led a minority government made up of his Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens in the Bundestag since he sacked Finance Minister Christian Lindner, from the liberal FDP party, on 7 November. The vote is considered a formality and the Bundestag’s ‘no’ on confidence in the government is taken for granted.
Scholz will then ask Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to dissolve Parliament. Steinmeier will have three weeks to consider the request. If he accepts, as expected, early elections must be called within 60 days.
“Our country needs stable majorities and a government capable of acting,” Steinmeier said in response to the end of Scholz’s majority, indicating that he will approve the chancellor’s request. The President has already made it known that he considers the choice of Sunday 23 February for the early elections to be realistic. The date of the vote at the natural end of the legislature had been set for next September 28th. The use of the confidence vote to get to early elections is relatively rare in Germany: this will be the fifth time for the Federal Republic born in 1949.
