Friday, July 01, 2005

Schroeder Loses Confidence Vote

CNN is reporting that Schroeder has lost a confidence vote in German parliament. Of interest is that he lost the vote on purpose:
The confidence motion garnered 151 votes, short of the 301 votes needed as members of Schroeder's own Social Democrat party obeyed his request to abstain.
There is still some doubt as to what happens next. (I can rarely understand the nuances of parliamentary-based governments.) But this information at the end of the article:
A recent poll found 71 percent of Germans favored an early election, with 24 percent opposed.
seems to indicate that Schroeder's days as Chancellor are numbered.

1 comment:

Keith Kannenberg said...

Schroeder called for early elections back in May already. I suspect this is simply a procedural move required to actually set an election date.