The political scientist explained Merz's loss in the first round of elections for the post of chancellor

Friedrich Merz, the leader of the alliance of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), lost the first round of voting for the position of chancellor due to opposition within his own bloc. This was stated by Artyom Sokolov, a researcher at the Center for European Studies at the MGIMO Institute of International Studies, in an interview with Izvestia on May 6.

"The voices of the opposition parties played a role, which, in principle, are numerically numerous, this is a significant factor. Secondly, I believe that an equally important role was played by the internal opposition to Merz in the ranks of the Christian Democratic Union, in the ranks of the CDU/CSU bloc," the political scientist said.

According to him, this opposition actively manifested itself in January when voting in the Bundestag for the initiative proposed by Merz to tighten migration legislation. It was rejected largely due to a lack of votes within the CDU.

"Now the situation has probably repeated itself in a certain way," Sokolov explained.

The political scientist admitted that the candidate for chancellor of Germany and his team will need to carry out some explanatory work, understand the discontent within their own ranks and settle them.

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On May 6, it was announced in the Bundestag that Merz had not won the necessary majority of 316 votes in the Bundestag elections to be elected Chancellor of Germany in the first round. As a result of the calculation, it turned out that 310 members of parliament voted "for" Merz's candidacy, 307 voted against, three abstained.