The constructive vote of no confidence (, ) is a variation on the motion of no confidence that allows a parliament to withdraw confidence from a head of government only if there is a positive majority for a prospective successor. The principle is intended to ensure governments' stability by making sure that a replacement has enough parliamentary support to govern.
The concept was introduced on a national scale in West Germany's 1949 constitution, which remains in force after the German reunification; it has been adopted since the 1970s in other nations like Spain, Hungary, Lesotho, Israel, Poland, Slovenia, Albania, and Belgium.
Germany
Governments in the post-WW1 Weimar Republic were very unstable. Since the only election threshold for the Reichstag was that a party had to have received at least 30,000 votes in a single district, it was possible to get a seat with as little as 0.1 percent of the vote (e.g., People's Justice Party in July 1932). This resulted in a fragmented parliament, making it difficult for a government to retain a majority. Furthermore, as the German Empire had not been a parliamentary system, the politicians who had served in the pre-war Reichstag had little experience with coalition governments, which were an absolute necessity given the fractured political landscape. The parties representing the political center-left – the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Centre Party and Progressive People's Party – had come together for the Reichstag Peace Resolution during World War I and had experience with cross-party cooperation through the Inter-Party Committee (:de:Interfraktioneller Ausschuss), but those efforts were directed against the government of the emperor and chancellor, not the work of a coalition of parties supporting a government agenda with difficult Realpolitik considerations. The three parties made up what was called the Weimar Coalition and formed four of the early cabinets under the new Weimar Constitution. Especially from 1925 on, however, Germany was governed by center-right coalitions that included the German People's Party (monarchist and thus opposed to the Weimar Coalition in 1919) as well as the Centre Party and the center-left German Democratic Party, with either the Social Democrats or the far right German National People's Party joining the coalitions or providing confidence and supply to a minority government.
Background: No-confidence motions prior to 1949
Under the German Empire (1871–1918), the chancellor was appointed or dismissed exclusively by the emperor, leaving the Reichstag with no formal mechanism of removing the chancellor, and therefore pressuring them. When Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg had drawn the ire of the Reichstag majority over his handling of the Zabern Affair, they passed a vote of censure against him, but the Emperor wanted him to stay, and the Reichstag had no recourse in the matter. The Weimar National Assembly that wrote the Weimar constitution explicitly inserted a provision that the chancellor needed the confidence of the Reichstag. The constitution also contained a strong Reich president who was authorized to appoint and remove the chancellor (Article 53). A Weimar Republic chancellor thus needed the support of both the president and the Reichstag and neither needed to present a workable alternative when the chancellor was dismissed. This proved especially problematic after the 1925 German presidential election made Paul von Hindenburg president. He was a strongly conservative monarchist who frequently clashed with and tried to undermine the SPD, the party that held the most seats in the Reichstag from 1919 to 1932. In the less than 14 years of the Republic, there was a succession of 14 Chancellors with 20 governments. All of the transitions under Reich President Friedrich Ebert of the SPD (in office 1919 to 1925) were made collegially with the cooperation of the Reichstag. Under Ebert, however, the emergency provisions of Article 48, which allowed the Reich president to take emergency measures without the prior consent of the Reichstag, was used 136 times, frequently to deal with political violence and economic emergencies. It was only after 1925 that the use of Article 48 led to the imposition of cabinets dependent on the confidence of the president, Paul von Hindenburg. The instability was helped by and seen as contributing to the rise of the Nazi Party. After the 1930 German Reichstag election there was no longer any workable government majority due to the Communist Party of Germany (then holding on to the social fascism thesis and thus unwilling to form a popular front government) and the Nazi party holding 184 out of 577 seats between them and frequently cooperating on motions to disrupt procedures and hamper the government. After the July 1932 German Reichstag election, the Nazis and Communists combined had 319 out of 605 seats, giving them the power to vote down any motion and dismiss the government through a vote of no confidence without being able (or willing) to propose any constructive measures of their own.
The Free State of Prussia (by far Germany's largest and most populous) had a slightly different constitutional setup which required a positive majority in favor of a new government to unseat the sitting government. Otto Braun of the Social Democrats served as Prime Minister of Prussia from 1920 until the 1932 Prussian coup d'état with only two interruptions, providing much more democratic stability in Prussia than at the Reich level.
Legislative framework in 1949 constitution
To prevent the type of instability seen on the Reich level during the Weimar Republic and taking a cue from the Prussian model, two provisions were included in the 1949 German constitution, the Basic Law () They stipulate that Bundeskanzler (Federal Chancellor), as the function is now called, may be removed from office by majority vote of the Bundestag ("Federal Diet", the German Federal Parliament) only if a prospective successor also has the support of a majority:
Article 67. (1) The Bundestag can express its lack of confidence in the Federal Chancellor only by electing a successor with the majority of its members and by requesting the Federal President to dismiss the Federal Chancellor. The Federal President must comply with the request and appoint the person elected. (2) Forty-eight hours must elapse between the motion and the election.
Article 68. (1) If a motion of a Federal Chancellor for a vote of confidence is not assented to by the majority of the members of the Bundestag, the Federal President may, upon the proposal of the Federal Chancellor, dissolve the Bundestag within twenty-one days. The right to dissolve shall lapse as soon as the Bundestag with the majority of its members elects another Federal Chancellor. (2) Forty-eight hours must elapse between the motion and the vote thereon.
As a result, the failure of a motion of confidence does not automatically force either the resignation of the cabinet or a new election. Rather, the cabinet may continue as a minority government if there is not a positive majority for a prospective successor. At the same time, the Bundestag can't be dissolved unless a motion of no confidence has passed; this was meant as a way to prevent the incumbent Chancellor from strategically calling a new election (such as when the party or coalition they belong to is higher in the polls). Indeed, a dissolution is allowed only after the cabinet has formally lost parliamentary support.
This mechanism of triggering early elections was used four times at the federal level, in 1972 after Willy Brandt narrowly survived an attempt to unseat him, in 1983 after Helmut Kohl wished to cement his ascension via constructive vote of no confidence (the FDP had switched from supporting Helmut Schmidt and the SPD to backing Kohl and the CDU/CSU two years after the 1980 German federal election), in 2005 when Gerhard Schröder wished to obtain a new mandate from the electorate in the face of falling poll numbers, criticism from members of his own party and the loss in the 2005 North Rhine-Westphalia state election (a state his party had governed since 1966) and in 2024 when the FDP broke the coalition with SPD and Alliance 90/The Greens led by Olaf Scholz.
In 2005, president Horst Köhler at first hesitated to grant Schröder's request to dissolve the Bundestag, he ultimately did so and the German Federal Constitutional Court refused to undo Köhler's action as it deemed the issue a political question tacitly endorsing the new convention.
For a motion of no confidence, a majority of all Bundestag members is needed to elect a new chancellor, so not participating in the vote has the same effect as voting no (or abstaining). This was of importance in the first, ultimately unsuccessful use of this instrument.
Also, the Federal President may dissolve the legislature only after the failure of a motion of confidence, and the legislature may not dissolve itself either. This provision is intended to limit the power of the President. One consequence of this is that in contrast to many other parliamentary democracies, the Chancellor does not petition the President to dissolve the legislature. Rather, a Chancellor needs to (deliberately) lose a motion of confidence in order to force a snap election.
While Carlo Schmid is generally considered the main contributor to this constitutional innovation, the concept was actually introduced after World War I in the Free State of Prussia. It was a major reason why Prussia was governed by a stable centre-left coalition without interruption from 1919 to 1932 in contrast to the instability of the national governments.
History of use Since 1949, two constructive votes of no confidence have been attempted (both by CDU against SPD), and only the second was successful.
Date Opposition candidate Chancellor All deputiesDiscounting the 22 deputies for West Berlin who did not have voting right and did not count for the majority. Majority needed Yes No Abstention absent/invalid Result 27 April 1972 Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU) Willy Brandt (SPD) 496 249 247 10 3 236 failed 1 October 1982 Helmut Kohl (CDU) Helmut Schmidt (SPD) 497 249 256 235 4 2 successful
1972: Kurt Georg Kiesinger vs. Willy Brandt (failed vote)
On 27 April 1972, an attempt to oust Chancellor Willy Brandt (SPD) in favour of opposition leader Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU) failed by only two votes. This came as a surprise since it was known that several members of the SPD-FDP coalition strongly opposed Brandt's Ostpolitik and the government no longer had a clear majority after several deputies either switched over to the opposition or announced they would vote for the no-confidence motion. The numerous defections theoretically dropped the coalition to just 246 votes. The opposition nominally had 250, one vote over the 249 needed to topple Brandt.
The voting was influenced by tactics. The law on specifies that the Chancellor is elected in a secret ballot, which applies in the motion of no confidence as well. To hamper their "faithless" deputies from voting for Kiesinger, the leadership of the SPD urged them not to participate in the vote; since a majority of all deputies is needed for a successful vote, not participating has the same effect as voting no, and it can be checked or enforced unlike secret ballot. Only the members of government and a few protesting coalition deputies (several from FDP, only Günter Müller from SPD) went to the voting booth, the first to ensure that dissenting deputies from CDU might remain secret.