GERHARD SCHRÖDER pleaded with his followers yesterday to help him to achieve his political ambition by voting him out of office.

The elaborate political hari-kiri of the German Chancellor was designed to open the way for a snap election and it looked, after a tense morning of voting, as if he had got his way. But it left the country baffled.

One member of parliament, Werner Schulz, deputy head of the Green Party, expressed something of the confusion when he asked: “What on earth have you done? You have achieved everything you wanted to prevent. The Opposition is united as never before and support is snowballing for a new left-wing party.”

Chancellor Schröder’s plans for a quick election was set in motion after a devastating defeat in a regional vote in the Social Democratic stronghold of North Rhine Westphalia. It was suddenly clear that he had lost the backing of the country.

Under the German Constitution, however, he has to be seen to lose the confidence of Parliament before he can appeal to the President for a dissolution. But the Chancellor still has a majority in Parliament even if his support has evaporated in almost every other political institution.

Deputies loyal to the Chancellor therefore had to be persuaded to vote against him. So, for the past week, the party managers of the Chancellor’s Social Democrats have been quietly encouraging disloyalty. The result yesterday was muddled but when the smoke cleared, 296 deputies had supported a motion voicing no confidence in the Chancellor, mainly opposition Christian Democrats and Free Democrats.

Most Social Democrats — 148 — abstained following the guidelines set by their leaders, but 151 Greens and rebel Social Democrats declared their confidence in Herr Schröder.

The Chancellor sat slumped, his shoulders hunched in his chair throughout. He has rarely, in the past seven years of government, seemed so old.

His one smile came when Joschka Fischer, the Foreign Minister, reminded the chamber how the two men had come together to agree on German military participation in the Balkans. That was in 1999 when the Social Democrat-Green Government was still young. Now the whole Cabinet, preparing for an intense summer election campaign, looked exhausted. For them, a spell in opposition is beginning to look like a welcome period of convalescence.

After the vote, the Chancellor contacted Horst Köhler, the President, who has to decide within three weeks whether to allow an election. Lawyers may yet advise him to keep the Government in place because it still has a parliamentary majority.

The official date for a general election is September next year. If the President gives the go-ahead it will be held a year early. The most powerful argument for an early vote is that everybody seems to want it — over 60 per cent of the nation, the Opposition, the Chancellor and most of the Social Democrats.

Yet the President is supposed to ignore the popular mood. “We live in a democracy not a demoscopy (government by market research),” said Herr Schulz. He plans to appeal against an early dissolution to the constitutional court. “There is a quotation from Einstein attached to the Chancellery building,” he said. “It declares that the State is for the people, not the people for the State. Well, we have not been paying attention.”

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Experts baffled by vanishing sea lions
• CIA caught in a dirty and secretive war
• Double life of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab