German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Friday dissolved the country’s lower house of parliament to pave the way for snap elections on February 23 following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-way coalition.
“Especially in difficult times, like now, stability requires a government capable of acting, and reliable majorities in parliament,” which was why early elections were the right way forward for Germany, Steinmeier said in Berlin.
After the elections, problem-solving must become the core business of politics again, Steinmeier added in a speech.
The president, whose post has been largely ceremonial in the post-war era, also called for the election campaign to be conducted fairly and transparently.
“External influence is a danger to democracy, whether it is covert, as was evidently the case recently in the Romanian elections, or open and blatant, as is currently being practiced particularly intensively on [social media] platform X,” he said.
Scholz, a Social Democrat who will head a caretaker government until a new one can be formed, lost a confidence vote in parliament earlier this month after the departure of Finance Minister Christian Lindner’s Free Democrats left his unwieldy governing coalition without a legislative majority.