Mr. Merz needed two rounds of voting to become chancellor after a surprising defeat in Parliament hours earlier that threatened to hobble his new government.

Friedrich Merz on Tuesday became Germany's chancellor, succeeding in a second-round parliamentary vote after initially failing to secure the necessary support. The first-round setback was unprecedented in Germany's modern history,

Hours after he suffered a historic defeat, Friedrich Merz was elected as German chancellor on Tuesday. The leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) had been widely expected to win the vote to become the country's 10th chancellor since World War II.