Berlin, May 7 -- Friedrich Merz suffered a shock setback when he fell short of a majority in an initial vote in the lower house of parliament to confirm him as Germany's next chancellor, preventing his swearing in on Tuesday and pitching Europe's biggest economy into uncharted territory. It was the first time since World War II that an incoming chancellor failed to get parliamentary backing in the first round of voting in the Bundestag and triggered chaos in Berlin's government quarter. Conservative leader Merz, who is set to take charge of a ruling coalition of his CDU/CSU bloc and the Social Democrats, only secured 310 votes in the secret ballot. That fell short of the required 316 out of 630 lawmakers, even though the coalition partners have 328 seats between them. A visibly shaken Merz left the chamber for emergency talks with his parliamentary group....