The German parliament “Bundestag”, elected Olaf Scholz as the country’s new chancellor, to replace Angela Merkel, who held the position for 16 years, ending a political career that spanned more than three decades.
Scholz won the votes of 395 politicians in the German parliament, the Bundestag, on Wednesday morning to replace Angela Merkel.
Olaf Scholz became Germany’s new chancellor three months after the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) won the country’s elections, defeating the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) that ruled for 16 years under Angela Merkel.
Scholz, who won the secret ballot with 395 out of 707 votes, will lead Germany’s first federal “traffic light” coalition, made up of the SPD, the ecologist Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and named for the parties’ colours.
Scholz ends the reign of Merkel, who retires at the age of 67 and is the first woman to run Germany, having spent 5,860 days in power.
Until the last hours of her reign, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made contacts with world leaders from her office inside the headquarters of the German Chancellery before leaving it today for the last time and handing it over to her successor, Olaf Scholz.
In her last speech, last Saturday, Merkel called on the German people to receive vaccinations against the novel coronavirus.
“Once again, I categorically ask you to take this deceptive virus seriously,” Merkel said in the recorded speech, describing the fourth wave that hit Germany as “extremely dangerous and dramatic.”
Merkel addressed the new mutant, Omikron, in particular, warning that it “appears as a virus more contagious than previous mutations,” appealing to everyone to vaccinate against the coronavirus, whether it is the first dose or the booster.
