Head of government, not head of state.
I don’t have an explanation either and therefore second this query. A definitive answer with regards to your last question is urgently needed.
Not so. The Chancellor’s term of office automatically ends when a newly elected Bundestag first convenes; usually the President asks the Chancellor and Cabinet to stay on as as acting Chancellor and Cabinet until a new Chancellor (usually the same person) is elected. (Article 69 of the German constitution)
Under the Germany constitution (the “Basic Law”), the head of government is not elected by popular vote (like the POTUS), but by the members of the legislature (the Bundestag).
There are 3 ways in which Angela Merkel could lose her office:
(1) She resigns
(2) She loses a vote of confidence (Article 68 of the Basic Law), followed by general elections.
(3) She is replaced as Chancellor by another politician in a vote of no confidence, aka “constructive vote of no confidence” (Article 67 of the Basic Law)
→ (1) Won’t happen because Merkel is delusional, stubborn and fanatic.
→ (2) Won’t happen because Merkel is delusional, stubborn and fanatic, the grand coalition of CDU and SPD has a solid majority and the CDU MPs know that they would be butchered in general elections. The right wing AfD party is ante portas.
→ (3) Won’t happen because the grand coalition of CDU and SPD has a solid majority. There are many CDU MPs who are horrified by Merkel’s erratic behaviour, but standing up against Merkel would sink their political careers and there is nobody among this crowd who could remotely be considered “Chancellor material”. In addition to that, the SPD has already said that would not vote a CDU Chancellor other than Merkel into office.
If forgot to add: (2), according to Article 68 of the Basic Law, can only be initiated by the Chancellor herself.
“Unlike the British system, the German Chancellor does not have to resign in response to the failure of a vote of confidence, provided it has been initiated by herself/himself and not by the parliamentary opposition, but rather may ask the Federal President to call general elections - a request the President may or may not fulfill.”
Thanks Donnerwetter. My question then would be which Chancellor has ever initiated a vote of confidence? Schmidt? Kohl? Helmut Schmidt had to go because everyone turned away from him.
First off, one has to understand the original intention/purpose of article 68 of the Basic Law. As has been mentioned before, the German Chancellor, unlike the POTUS, is elected by and must rely upon a majority of the members of parliament, the Bundestag. By invoking article 68 of the Basic Law, the Chancellor is calling his own majority to order in the strongest possible terms, expecting to win this vote. That’s the original scenario.
In reality, Article 68 has been used (or rather abused) to initiate early elections: Under this scenario, there is an implied understanding that a majority of the Bundestag will vote against their Chancellor in spite of the fact that they actually still support him. It is a workaround for calling new elections (which the Chancellor otherwise cannot do, unlike, for instance, the Prime Minister in the UK).
There have been 5 votes of confidence under article 68 of the Basic Law:
- Willy Brandt 1972 (lost and intended to lose, but he had narrowly repelled a no confidence vote under article 67 earlier that year)
- Helmut Schmidt 1982 (won and intended to win, but he eventually was removed by a no confidence vote under article 67 later that year)
- Helmut Kohl 1982 (lost and intended to lose, this was the most controversial one)
- Gerhard Schröder 2001 (won very closely and expected to win)
- Gerhard Schröder 2005 (lost and - most probably - intended to lose)
So what happenned… or might happen?
Here’s what happened
"The AfD (Alternative for Germany) party secured 24.2 percent in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, making it the second-largest party after the ruling CDU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany), which won 30 percent, according to exit polls and early counting.
Official results from Baden-Württemberg show AfD managed to win 15.1 percent of the ballots to come in third, after the state’s ruling Green Party with the most votes, and CDU, which took second place.
Results for Rhineland Palatinate also put AfD in the third place, while CDU lost its majority to Social-Democrats, securing only 32 percent against their 36. "
and here
http://news.yahoo.com/merkels-cdu-party-loses-two-three-regions-exit-171633508.html
“In the aftermath of the vote described as “Black Sunday for the CDU” by news website Spiegel Online, Merkel also came in for criticism for unwittingly allowing the AfD to flourish…Nevertheless, the irony is that Sunday’s polls showed there is no obvious successor to Merkel, as the CDU’s biggest mainstream challenger and junior coalition partner – the SPD – emerged weakened in two out of three states where it came in behind AfD.”
What the most recent results show is that in the east (Sachsen-Anhalt) AfD (populist, anti-immigration) has mobilised a segment of voters who didn’t vote before, but that elsewhere their impact has been somewhat less, and in other states, Merkel’s immigration policies are not as unpopular as all that. The SPD and the Greens are more or less on the same page with her on that point.
So I think you may be overestimating the “popular opposition”.
Thanks PatrickLondon. Good to get a little more balance on the results.
This is kind of an odd comparison, to say the least. She has been head cheese notably longer and can continue longer than Obama. The whole government system is so different that how popular her decisions are amongst her own, coalition partner and opposition parties means vastly different dynamics. And “they both did unpopular stuff” borders on the banal.