Friedrich Merz fails in the first voting round to become the next leader of Germany

Friedrich Merz, the leader of the German Christian Democrats and her leader-in-way for the past 10 weeks, failed in his first parliamentary mood to become a chancellor on Tuesday morning.

The setback was probably temporary: the party of Mr Merz, the sister party, the Christian Social Union and their coalition partner, the Center-Link Social Democrats, still have enough voices to choose a chancellor and form a government. Mr. Merz will now have to put pressure on the six holdout voters from his coalition to support him with a second vote.

But it was a stumble without a German precedent. Since the founding of modern Germany, no candidate for Chancellor has never failed the first voting round.

It was unclear when a second mood would be held.