German Chancellor Scholz loses confidence vote, snap elections to follow

ERMAN Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost in a vote of confidence in the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, on Monday. The move would dissolve Scholz’s minority coalition government and trigger a process that would lead to early federal elections.
The confidence vote saw 207 parliament members expressing confidence in Scholz, with 394 voting against him and 116 abstaining.
Such a vote has not taken place in Germany for almost two decades. Scholz had requested the confidence vote last week, invoking Article 68 of the Basic Law, as the currently only viable way to trigger early elections. Major opposition parties have long been calling for this.
Although theoretically, Scholz could have continued in office without a majority, it would have been politically untenable as the Bundestag
would have been unable to pass legislation. Concerns had arisen that Scholz could unexpectedly win the vote. This scenario could have materialized if members of Scholz’s SPD and the Greens voted in favour, while the AfD voted to support him to create chaos. To prevent this possibility of unintended support from the AfD’s 76 members potentially pushing Scholz over the required 367 votes, the Green party leadership advised its members to abstain. — Xinhua

Source- The Global New Light of Myanmar