Germany’s Olaf Scholz Loses Confidence Vote

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a parliamentary confidence vote on Monday.

• 394 lawmakers cast their votes against the government.
• 207 voted in favor of the government.
• 116 abstained.

Scholz called for the vote and even expected to lose, hoping that an early election would revive his party’s popularity. Snap elections will now be held on February 23.

Weak leadership: Germany’s coalition collapsed last month because Scholz fired his finance minister, leaving the minority administration in dispute over the budget. Rather than boosting popularity, the confidence vote only provides more evidence of the widespread dissatisfaction with Scholz’s leadership.

The long tugging and wrangling [over legislative projects] would have been avoided if our Chancellor Olaf Scholz had shown more leadership.
—Britta Hasselmann, Greens’ parliamentary group leader

[Scholz’s] government was in power for just three years. Germans will have to deal with the damage that [it] caused in this time.
—Alice Weidel, head of Alternative für Deutschland

Polls: Currently, Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union leads in the polls, more than 10 points ahead over Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (spd). The increasingly popular far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party is in second place, slightly ahead of the spd.

Many parties have said they will not work together with the AfD to form a coalition. This means that the more popular the AfD, the more difficult it will be for parties to form a stable coalition after the upcoming elections.

What’s coming: Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has often warned that a weak coalition in Germany will open the door for a strong leader to rise in Europe. Germany’s political upheaval, along with that of other European nations, could well pave the way for this leader to come on the scene.

To learn more, read our free booklet A Strong German Leader Is Imminent.