BERLIN, DEC 16 (AFP/APP/DNA):Germany’s embattled Chancellor Olaf Scholz will face parliament Monday to trigger the process towards February 23 elections, in the hope that he can weather a political crisis and win a second term.
Scholz, 66, whose coalition collapsed last month, has called a confidence vote which he is expected to lose, clearing the way for the dissolution of the Bundestag and a return to the ballot box.
Friedrich Merz, 69, the top candidate of the conservative CDU-CSU opposition alliance of ex-chancellor Angela Merkel, is well ahead in opinion polls.
The political contest comes at a time when Europe’s top economy is struggling to revive its stuttering export-led industrial sector amid high energy prices and tough competition from China.
Berlin also faces major geopolitical challenges as it confronts Russia over the Ukraine war and as Donald Trump’s looming return to the White House heightens uncertainty over NATO and trade ties.
Merz, a former corporate lawyer, long rained withering fire on the motley alliance of the chancellor’s Social Democrats (SPD), the left-leaning Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP).
Coalition bickering over fiscal and economic woes came to a head when Scholz fired his rebellious FDP finance minister Christian Lindner on November 6, the very day Trump was re-elected.
The departure of Lindner’s FDP left Scholz at the helm of a minority government with the Greens of Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
Unable to pass major bills or a new state budget without opposition support, the government is now limping along, with all sides in election mode.
Germany’s political turmoil comes as key EU partner France has also been roiled by crisis and gridlock which saw President Emmanuel Macron on Friday asking centrist Francois Bayrou to try to form a new government.
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