The German parliament today elected Olaf Scholz as chancellor ending 16 years rule of Angela Merkel at the helm as a new centre-left-led coalition takes the wheel of Europe’s top economy.
Scholz, who won with a simple majority and received 395 of the 707 votes cast in the Bundestag lower house, has pledged broad “continuity” with the popular Merkel while making Germany greener and fairer.
The new German chancellor will face several challenges, among them fighting the coronavirus pandemic and climate change. The alliance aims to slash carbon emissions, overhaul decrepit digital infrastructure, modernise citizenship laws, lift the minimum wage and have Germany join a handful of countries worldwide in legalising marijuana.
Scholz, who will later be sworn in by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has pledged broad “continuity” with the popular Merkel while making Germany greener and fairer.
The finance minister under Merkel led his Social Democrats to victory in the September 26 election – an outcome considered unthinkable at the start of the year given the party’s then festering divisions and anaemic support.
Scholz, 63, who turned emulating Merkel in style and substance into a winning strategy, has now cobbled together Germany’s first national “traffic light” coalition with the ecologist Greens and the liberal Free Democrats, nicknamed after the parties’ colours.
Their four-year pact sealed late last month is called “Dare for More Progress”, a hat tip to Social Democratic chancellor Willy Brandt’s 1969 historic pledge to “Dare for More Democracy”.
