Constructive vote of no confidence

The constructive vote of no confidence (in German: konstruktives Misstrauensvotum, in Spanish: moción de censura constructiva) is a variation on the motion of no confidence which allows a parliament to withdraw confidence from a head of government only if there is a positive majority for a prospective successor. The concept was invented in West Germany, but is today also used in other nations, such as Spain, Hungary, Lesotho, Israel, Poland, Slovenia, Albania and Belgium.

Governments in the 1919 Weimar Republic were usually very unstable. As there was no election threshold for getting a seat in the Reichstag, it was possible to get a seat with as little as 0.4 percent of the vote. This resulted in a large number of parties getting seats, making it very difficult for a government to retain a majority. Under the Weimar Constitution, a Chancellor (or Reichskanzler as he was then called) would frequently be voted out of office without his successor having sufficient backing to govern. This led to a quick succession of many Chancellors in office. Many of these chancellors were forced to rely on the emergency provisions of Article 48 just to conduct the basic business of government. In the latter years of the Weimar era, this frequently led to the imposition of cabinets that were dependent on the confidence of the President, Paul von Hindenburg. This instability was helped by and seen as contributing to the rise of the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler.

To overcome this problem, two provisions were included in the 1949 German constitution, the Grundgesetz (Basic Law). They stipulate that the Chancellor, or Bundeskanzler (Federal Chancellor) as he is now called, may be removed from office by majority vote of the Bundestag ("Federal Diet", the lower chamber/house of the German Federal Parliament) only if a prospective successor also has the support of a majority. The relevant provisions are as follows:

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