IMK chairmanship skipped after AfD election victory

Given the political situation in Saxony-Anhalt, the Prime Minister's Conference (MPK) will also deviate from the usual chairmanship sequence. However, Rhineland-Palatinate will remain chairman there for another year. Actually, Saxony-Anhalt's Prime Minister Sven Schulze (CDU) should have taken over the chairmanship next week. However, after the AfD's victory in the state elections at the beginning of September, he declared his renunciation in a letter to the head of the Rhineland-Palatinate government, Gordon Schnieder (CDU).

The further order of the chairing countries of the MPK should remain unchanged. This means that Schleswig-Holstein will take over the presidency in October 2027 as originally planned. The state parliament will be re-elected there in April next year.

No preliminary discussions with the AfD at the interior ministers' conference

A few days ago, the Conference of Interior Ministers (IMK) abandoned its principle of unanimous decisions. From now on, the IMK considers it to be decided what receives a majority of at least 13 of the 16 votes in the committee. It was said that the aim was to prevent any blockade by the AfD.

In general, an AfD minister from Saxony-Anhalt would not find a connection in the IMK: Like all other department heads, he could take part in the meetings of the interior ministers' conference of the federal and state governments, but not in the usual separate preliminary discussions of the so-called A and B states, said the spokesman for the B states, Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU). The “A states” are informally the SPD-led states, the “B states” are the Union-led states plus Baden-Württemberg, where the Greens provide the Prime Minister.

“The decision taken by the CDU and CSU is clear: there is no cooperation with the AfD,” he says. This means that the question of an AfD interior minister in the group of B countries is completely absurd. “That won’t happen,” he affirms. From the ranks of the SPD-led states it is said that the AfD would not be accepted into their group.

AfD election winner wants to be elected prime minister

In the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt on September 6th, the AfD was the strongest force with 43.8 percent, ahead of the CDU with 17.2 percent. The AfD is three votes short of an absolute majority in the state parliament. According to his own words, top candidate Ulrich Siegmund would like to be elected as the first AfD Prime Minister shortly before Christmas.