Thursday, November 14, 2024

German snap election may not be possible because of ‘lack of paper for ballots’

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The German chancellor said on Friday that he wanted to “quickly allow new elections” after initially insisting that he wanted to pass a raft on unratified legislation before taking the country to the polls.

Mr Scholz appeared to make his agreement to an early election conditional on the opposition backing legislation that was in the pipeline before he lost his majority.

In order for a general election to be held ahead of schedule, German law requires that a chancellor loses a vote of confidence, which then leads to the dissolution of parliament.

CDU ahead in the polls

Friedrich Merz, leader of the CDU, has refused to agree to support Mr Scholz’s legislative agenda as a condition for quick elections.

Describing Mr Scholz as a “share without any value,” he has said that Germany “cannot afford to have a government without a majority for months on end.”

After months of bickering inside his three-way coalition with the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats, Mr Scholz fired his finance minister on Wednesday, a move that led to the Free Democrats resigning en masse from the government.

The chancellor initially set out a plan to hold an election in late March, saying he wanted to  “pass bills that can’t be delayed” beforehand.

In polling, the CDU are in the lead by 33 per cent, with Mr Scholz’s Social Democratic Party and the hard-Right Alternative for Germany both on around 16 per cent.

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