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Posted on 05/06/2025 8:22:14 AM PDT by JSM_Liberty
Germany’s Friedrich Merz has formally become chancellor at the second attempt, hours after an unprecedented defeat signaled deep discontent within his coalition.
In a hastily organized session on Tuesday afternoon, 325 lawmakers voted to approve his appointment — more than the 316 he required. His appointment was approved by the president shortly later, and he is set to be sworn in at the Bundestag.
Merz, who won an election in February and unveiled a ruling coalition last month, had fallen six votes short earlier in the day, a stunning setback that marked another twist in a tortuous period of uncertainty for the country.
He is now set to formally become chancellor after being approved by the German President. But his tenure will start on unstable footing: Tuesday’s votes revealed reluctance inside his coalition, and gave the insurgent far-right AfD party a new opportunity to ruffle the political establishment.
Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party won an election in February, but failed to pick up enough seats to govern outright – an outcome that is commonplace in Germany’s diverse political environment. He last month announced he would form a coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), a rare fusing of Germany’s two establishment groups that ensured the AfD – which came second in the February poll – would remain locked out of power. It extended the so-called “firewall,” a blockade against far-right groups that German politicians have kept in place since after World War II, but which has become increasingly tenuous.
The coalition has 328 seats in total, and the vote to approve a chancellor is usually a formality; never before in modern German history had a chancellor-in-waiting failed to win. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
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Fred Mertz??
Not to big to rig...
“He last month announced he would form a coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), a rare fusing of Germany’s two establishment groups that ensured the AfD – which came second in the February poll – would remain locked out of power.”
This is what the American uniparty would look like in a parliamentary system.
He’s chancellor like Kamala was the nominee.
We’ll always have Europe: Talking liberty from their authoritarian perch.
IBT I love Lucy jokes 🙂
Nope, you failed. First reply.
Les Nessman.
The deepstate neocons (cdu) had to make nice with deepstate (spd) because enough voters have left cdu since election that AfD is actually the largest now.
This well could create a backlash resulting in AfD coming closer to 40% or more next time.
Oh for corn’s sake, Ethel!
How very like something that happened toward the end of the Weimar Republic period.
The Worldwide Communist Gummit is most happy to stop the rebellion.
:-)
I know the topic is serious but sometimes a laugh is needed.
CNN — No thanks. With minimal effort, you can find the same information from other sources that don’t hate conservatives as much as CNN.
So basically their version of Rinos are in charge and made a deal with their version of the Dems to make sure their version of MAGA doesn’t have any authority despite coming in 2nd place.
So the Uniparty prevails
When you don’t know whether to laugh or cry, laughter is the best medicine. :)
“Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party”
I wonder what they are doing for Christians these days.
The big difference is that the party controls who can be its nominees for seats: there's nothing like our primary system where anyone, no matter how despised by the powers that be, can campaign for a Dem or Repub nomination for an office.
The US is uniquely democratic among Western "democracies" because the parties do not control the nominating process, apart from the Presidential nominee, as we just saw with Harris.
That is exactly what i was thinking..
History repeats.
But not against far-right groups.
And the AfD is not "far-right." It is merely looks that way because of the slide to the left of all the other parties.
Regards,
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