Parliament votes in favour of handing Angela Merkel another four-year term for the third time.
Angela Merkel has been sworn in for a rare third term as German chancellor, capping months of political uncertainty as she bartered with her rivals to help govern Europe’s top economy.
Tuesday’s vote in the Bundestag was a formality as the ruling parties hold an overwhelming majority of the seats. A total of 462 lawmakers backed Merkel for chancellor, with 150 voting against and 9 abstaining.
Eighty-six days after Merkel swept to victory in elections but failed to grab an outright majority, the lower house of parliament voted on handing her another four-year term.
With a whopping 504 of the 631 seats, Merkel’s conservatives and their new centre-left partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), hold a comfortable majority under their hard-fought ‘grand coalition’ deal.
Merkel must be confirmed by President Joachim Gauck at the presidential palace before returning to the Bundestag to be sworn in as Germany’s only third post-war chancellor to win a third mandate.
The ceremony and later swearing-in of ministers followed by the first cabinet meeting will enable Merkel to finally get back down to business in earnest after the longest government-building period since World War II.
Merkel is then due to address parliament on Wednesday and travel to Paris for talks with President Francois Hollande the same day, ahead of an EU summit at the end of the week.
A parliament debate after Wednesday’s address will be the first opportunity for a face-off across the floor since the SPD moved off the opposition benches.Merkel has defended the time spent haggling over policy and posts with an initially reluctant SPD as time well spent, voicing appreciation on signing the coalition pact Monday “that we listened to each other”.
Agencies
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