The passing of the 100-day milestone for any world leader usually denotes the end of their honeymoon period. Friedrich Merz has not been able to enjoy even a single day of grace, beginning with the very moment he was supposed to be elected Germany’s chancellor but wasn’t. On 6 May, as Angela Merkel watched from the visitors’ balcony, the Bundestag voted and declined to approve its new leader. For a few hours, chaos ensued, until the second round of voting saw his chancellorship approved, so the swearing in could proceed.
It was a symbolic act of defiance, and because it was a secret ballot, it wasn’t clear how many of the 18 dissenters came from Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU) or from their new coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD). But it cast a shadow over the new administration from its inception: this is the government that nobody wanted – not least its protagonists.
