The German Federal Chancellor (Bundeskanzler), Gerhard Schröder, deliberately lost a confidence vote in the German lower parliamentary house, the Bundestag. Schröder had aimed to lose the vote of confidence in order to dissolve the Bundestag and to achieve earlier elections. In debate, Schröder argued, that there is no safe majority for his policy in the Bundestag. In his second term as Chancellor, he tried to start a reform agenda (Agenda 2010) which aimed to cut the budget deficit and unemployment in Germany, which has been criticised as neo-liberalism by several supporters of his party.
During the debate, opposition leader Angela Merkel explained that her party, the Christian Democrats, supports early elections. However, she did criticise the coalition government of the Social-Democrats and the Greens,  for the country's high unemployment rates (which have peaked at 5 million) and low economic growth. A Green deputy, Werner Schulz, attacked Schröder's using the vote of confidence in order to achieve early elections, which is from his point of view unconstitutional. Franz Müntefering, leader of the Social Democrats had invited members of the ruling coalition to abstain from voting. 151 deputies supported Schröder, 296 voted against him and 148 abstained from voting.
After the lost motion of confidence, the German President Horst Köhler can examine Schröder's arguments for three weeks and dissolve the Bundestag while setting a date for early elections. At least one deputy has announced he intends going to the Federal Constitutional Court to appeal against Schöder's way of using the vote of confidence. The court will then have to decide whether it was constitutional or not. 
All parties know that there might be early elections by September. At the moment, opinion polls are showing a majority for conservative opposition.
(The following summary was included in the audio release of Wikinews for 7/2):
Share this: 






This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Public domain
Public domain
false
false
Schröder loses motion of confidence