German Chancellor Olaf Scholz loses confidence motion in parliament

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence motion in the Bundestag, the lower house of the legislative system, on Monday. Scholz, a Social Democrat and head of the government since 2021, succeeded Angela Merkel with a three-party coalition that has proved insufficiently solid.

The chancellor only had the support of his party, the SPD, and this brings Germany even closer to the scenario of early elections in February. With the result of the motion, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, also a Social Democrat, can dissolve the Bundestag and call Germans to the polls.

This election and instability comes after the coalition government that the Social Democrats maintained with the Environmentalists and the Liberals collapsed last November.

The German government's economic policies were at the heart of the collapse of the coalition dubbed the "traffic light" coalition because of the colors of the parties in it. They culminated in the dismissal of the liberal Christian Lindner as finance minister.

Scholz, 66, is seeking another term in office, but is lagging in the polls, behind conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Apart from this political crisis, Germany has some serious challenges on the economic front. The country has been hit by energy prices and tough competition from China.

The Berlin government also faces challenges from Russia's war in Ukraine and the imminent return of Donald Trump to the White House, which puts future trade relations with the United States in doubt.

Those issues were the focus of Monday's heated parliamentary debate between Scholz, Merz and other political leaders during the confidence motion session.

During the debate Scholz argued that his government has succeeded in revamping the armed forces that previous CDU-led governments had left "in a deplorable state."

"It is high time to invest powerfully and decisively in Germany," Scholz said and warned that "a highly armed nuclear power [Russia] is waging a war in Europe just a two-hour flight from here."

But Merz replied that he had left the country in "one of the biggest economic crises of the postwar period." "You had your chance, but you didn't take it. ... You, Mr. Scholz, do not deserve trust," he said.

Merz, a former lawyer who has never held a government post, was one of the main critics of the three-party coalition, which broke up over fiscal and economic disagreements