German chancellor Olaf Scholz loses confidence vote, triggering early elections

Scholz had called the vote to deliberately lose it following the collapse of his coalition government

Olaf Scholz has lost a historic vote of confidence in the German parliament, paving the way for early national elections following the collapse of his government.

The German chancellor had called the vote in order to deliberately lose it, urging the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, to declare its lack of confidence in him so that the first formal step could be made towards triggering new elections.