Conservative leader Friedrich Merz has won a parliament vote to become Germany’s next chancellor at the second attempt.

Merz had initially fallen six votes short of the absolute majority he needed on Tuesday morning – a significant blow to his prestige and an unprecedented failure in post-war German history.

As it was a secret ballot in the 630-seat Bundestag, there was no indication who had refused to back him – either MPs from his centre-left coalition partner or his own conservatives.

After hours of uncertainty in the Bundestag, the parties and the president of the Bundestag agreed to hold a second vote, which Merz then won with 325 votes, a majority of nine.

His coalition with the Social Democrats should have had enough seats in parliament from the start but it appears 18 MPs who had been expected to back him dissented during the first vote.

There was a prevailing mood of confusion in the parliament in the hours after the vote.

Under Germany’s constitution, there is no limit to how many votes can be held but in practice another defeat for Merz would have meant a headache for his Christian Democrats, its sister party the Christian Social Union and their partner the Social Democrats.

No chancellor candidate in the 76 years of Germany’s post-war democracy has lost a Bundestag vote before.

Bundestag President Julia Klöckner was initially said to be planning a second vote on Wednesday, but Christian Democrat General Secretary Carsten Linnemann said it was important to press ahead.

“Europe needs a strong Germany, that’s why we can’t wait for days,” he told German TV.

Parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn appealed to his colleagues’ sense of responsibility: “all of Europe, perhaps the whole world, is watching this ballot.”

Merz’s defeat was seen by political commentators as a humiliation, possibly inflicted by a handful of disaffected members of the Social Democrat SPD, which signed a coalition deal with his conservatives on Monday.

The Bundestag president told MPs that nine of the 630 MPs were absent, three abstained and another ballot paper was declared invalid.

Not everyone in the SPD was happy with the deal, but party officials were adamant their party was fully committed to it.

“It was a secret vote so nobody knows,” senior Social Democrat MP Ralf Stegner told the BBC, “but I can tell you I don’t have the slightest impression that our parliamentary group wouldn’t have known our responsibility.”

Party leader Lars Klingbeil, who is set to become Germany’s next vice-chancellor, said it was his assumption that Merz would win a majority in Tuesday’s second vote.

Far-right party Alternative for Germany, which came second in the February election with 20.8% of the vote, seized on his initial failure and called for fresh elections.

Joint leader Alice Weidel wrote on X that the vote showed “the weak foundation on which the small coalition has been built between the [conservatives] and SPD, which was rejected by voters”.

Merz’s choice for foreign minister, Christian Democrat colleague Johann Wadephul, told the BBC the initial vote was “an obstacle but not a catastrophe”.

Germany’s handover of government is carefully choreographed. On the eve of Tuesday’s vote, outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz was treated to a traditional Grand Tattoo by an armed forces orchestra.

Merz, 69, was expected first to win the vote and then visit President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to be sworn in, fulfilling a long-held ambition to become German chancellor.

His rival and former chancellor Angela Merkel had come to the Bundestag to watch the vote take place.

Caretaker ministers from Germany’s outgoing government were all planning to hand over to their successors on Tuesday afternoon.

Political correspondents in the Bundestag said the initial failure to back Merz indicated that even if the coalition did come to power eventually, there was a potential issue lurking within its ranks.

AfD MP Bernd Baumann said the CDU had promised a string of policies similar to his own party’s, such as limiting migration, and then went into an alliance with the centre left: “That doesn’t work. That’s not how democracy works.”

“This isn’t good,” warned Green politician Katrin Göring-Eckardt. “Even though I don’t want this chancellor or support him, I can only warn everyone not to rejoice in chaos.”

Less than 24 hours earlier, the messaging had been very different, of Germany under a stable government putting six months of political paralysis to an end.

“It’s our historical duty to make this government a success,” Merz had said as he signed the coalition document.

Despite having a narrow majority of 12 seats, the agreement between the conservatives and centre left was seen as far more stable than the so-called traffic-light coalition of three parties which fell apart last November in a row over debt spending.

The SPD, which had been the biggest party in the old coalition slumped to its worst post-war election result in third place, but Merz had promised that Germany was back and that he would boost its voice on the world stage and revive a flagging economy.

After two years of recession, Europe’s largest economy grew in the first three months of 2025. However economists have warned of potential risks to German exports because of US-imposed tariffs.

Germany’s services sector contracted last month because of weaker demand and lower consumer spending.