Two and a half months after the elections in Germany, the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz will become Chancellor on Wednesday by returning to the center-left to power and definitively closing the era of 16 years of Angela Merkel.
The 736 deputies of the Bundestag who voted on September 26 have already finished the secret ballot giving their confidence. Your choice as 9th German Chancellor postwar is not in doubt: its Social Democratic Party (SPD), who emerged victorious from the parliamentary elections, has a comfortable majority (206 seats), along with its two new coalition partners, the Greens (118 seats) and the FDP Liberals (92). He needs 369 votes to be elected.
The result of this vote will mark the Angela Merkel’s withdrawal at the end of four terms that, in the absence of nine days, will not have allowed him to break the longevity record that he holds Helmut Kohl (1982-1998).
Tributes galore
The leader, who has received a barrage of tributes in recent weeks, will definitely leave the Foreign Ministry after a ceremony of transfer with Olaf Scholz, his political adversary but also, as a result of alliances, his Minister of Economy and Vice Chancellor for the last four years.
Angela Merkel, at the peak of her popularity until recently, ends a 31-year political career, 16 of which she has spent running Europe’s largest economy.
A convinced feminist, Olaf Scholz will take the reins of a Government composed for the first time by as many men as women. Three of them will lead key ministries: Foreign affairs for environmentalist Annalena Baerbock, Defending e Interior for the two Social Democrats Christine Lambrecht and Nancy Faeser.
The political composition of the Government will also be new. For the first time since the 1950s, it will bring together three parties: the SPD, the Greens and the Liberal Democratic Party (FDP). The coalition responds to the name of traffic light coalition. Despite their sometimes contradictory electoral programs, the three parties were able to quickly agree on a program that emphasizes climate protection, budgetary rigor and Europe. Christian Lindner, leader of the Liberals and paragon of fiscal austerity, will take over the powerful Finance Ministry.
Health crisis
As soon as they take up their new positions, ministers will face a health crisis of a scale not seen since the appearance of the covid. The outbreak has already led Berlin to take drastic measures against unvaccinated people, forbidding them access to restaurants, cultural venues and even, in some regions like Berlin, to shops.
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The strategy of the new Executive is now based on a compulsory vaccination desired by Olaf Scholz and that could be adopted in February or March, while hospitals are under pressure, especially in Saxony and Bavaria, where the pandemic is raging. The former mayor of Hamburg has decided to entrust the Health portfolio to Karl Lauterbach, a doctor by training and defender of restrictive measures.
However, the new team is likely to face the wrath of the old GDR, a region in which the extreme right it has its strongholds and in which a part of the population revels in conspiracy theories while refusing vaccination.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com