Olaf Schultz will succeed Angela Merkel After obtaining a majority of 395 votes among 736 delegates in the parliamentary vote on Wednesday morning, he became the new Chancellor of Germany.
Schultz will oversee his free-left “traffic light” coalition government between the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Green Party and the Liberal Democratic Party (FDP), which is the first such power-sharing agreement in the United States. Germany, And the first three-party ruling coalition since 1957.
Schultz, the former mayor and finance minister of Hamburg during Merkel’s last tenure, received 21 fewer votes than the 416 seats of the three coalition parties in the Bundestag, even though several politicians were absent from voting due to illness.
The Social Democratic politician wore a Bordeaux red tie and took off his black mask to accept the vote. In the applause, the delegates congratulated Schultz with fists, handshake and flowers. Someone gave him a basket of red apples.
Several politicians of Merkel’s Christian Democratic League also fell to the worst results in German history in the September national vote. They also took this opportunity to congratulate Schultz on social media.
The conservative prime minister candidate Armin Laschet (Armin Laschet) not only lost the election, but will also become the leader of the party next spring. Tweet: “Even if we fight for different results, we can consider ourselves lucky because there is so much mutual respect among the democrats in this country.”
After the vote, Scholz went to the official residence of the Bellevue Palace of German President Frank Waltersteinmeier to accept the formal appointment.
At noon, he returned to the Bundestag to take the oath of office, vowing to use the power bequeathed to him “for the benefit of the German people.” Schultz grew up in a Protestant family, but later chose to leave the church. He refused to say the last optional word of the vow, “God bless me.”
Guests who watched the ceremony at the Visitors Gallery included former Prime Minister Gerhard Schroeder, Schultz’s wife Britta Ernst, his parents Gerhard and Crystal Schultz, as well as him Brothers Jens and Ingo.
The new government was finally announced in Parliament at 1:30 pm, after which the ministers of the Schultz cabinet were sworn in.
The new cabinet for gender equality contains multiple firsts: for the first time women will serve as ministers of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Interior, the former being the green politician Annalena Baerbock, and the latter being the Social Democrat Nancy Faeser. The Ministry of Defense will be held by Christine Lambrecht, who is the third consecutive woman in this position.
Cem Özdemir, Minister of Agriculture of the Green Party, will become the first minister of Turkish descent in the Federal Republic.
As the name of the new minister was read out, the loudest cheers were heard in the conference room when it was mentioned that the new minister of health in Germany.
Karl Lauterbach, a researched epidemiologist and Harvard graduate, has been a mainstay of the TV panel debate throughout the pandemic. He has become a German anti-vaccine and blockade skeptic Hate people, but regarded by many as the most qualified politician for the job. Ministry of Health.
Merkel also watched the proceedings of the visitor’s gallery. The outgoing prime minister, who is about to end his political career and will not continue to serve as a member of parliament, received a standing ovation from almost all the delegates in the last few minutes of his term. Only members of the far-right German Alternative Party remain seated.
As the new Speaker of the Bundestag, Bärbel Bas, read out the names of all the representatives eligible to vote for the new Prime Minister, Merkel, wearing a mask, scribbled frantically on the notebook.
Merkel’s last day as prime minister was her 5,860th day, which was only 10 days behind the record set by her late former mentor Helmut Kohl.
Merkel will officially hand over her Chancellery office in central Berlin to Schultz and his team on Wednesday. The cuboid building opposite the parliament, nicknamed the “Federal Washing Machine”, has been the seat of German leaders since 2001, making Schultz the third chancellor to rule in his office.
The head of the new German government is expected to make his first visit on Friday as early as Friday, when he will also attend the “Democracy Summit” hosted by US President Joe Biden via a video link. In the September election campaign, Schultz had stated that he would follow Merkel’s example and visit Paris for the first time abroad.
Germany’s new chief diplomat, Balbok, vowed to make Brussels as her first destination. German media reported that she could go to the European Commission’s seat on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday.
On Saturday and Sunday, Baerbock will attend the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Liverpool, where she can introduce herself to colleagues from the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Italy, Japan and Canada
Schultz’s new spokesperson and representatives of 14 federal ministers will hold their first press conference on Monday, in line with the three weekly media Q&A sessions.
Merkel’s spokesperson, Steffen Seibert (Steffen Seibert) has indicated that he intends to withdraw from politics, and his tweets on the government’s official website will be archived.
