Exactly one month after the election in Saxony-Anhalt, the new state parliament was formed in Magdeburg. The most important item on the agenda is the election of the President of Parliament and his deputies.
With Tobias Rausch, a member of the AfD election winner, which the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified as “certain right-wing extremist,” could become parliamentary speaker for the first time.
The new state parliament has 83 seats, 39 of which are occupied by the AfD parliamentary group. For the first time, this will not sit on the right but in the center of parliament.
The CDU parliamentary group only has 15 seats and will now sit on the far left in the plenary hall. To the right of the AfD parliamentary group are the eight MPs each from the Left, SPD and Greens, and on the far right is the BSW parliamentary group.
A historic session in the Magdeburg state parliament is coming to an end. In addition to votes on the rules of procedure and other formalities, the main focus was on the election of the parliamentary presidency. The AfD was able to achieve great success here:
For the first time in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, a politician from a right-wing extremist party was elected President of Parliament. The AfD politician Tobias Rausch received 48 votes. The AfD and BSW factions, which had previously announced the Rausch election, together have 44 votes. Rausch therefore received at least four additional votes from one or more other factions.
The result in the election for vice president is equally surprising: the right-wing politician Hans-Thomas Tillschneider from the AfD received 44 votes in the first round of voting - even though the five BSW MPs had previously announced that they would vote against him. It is unclear from which faction Tillschneider received support. BSW and CDU each claim that they did not vote for Tillschneider.
The CDU and SPD each nominated their own candidates for the office of the two additional Vice Presidents of Parliament. While the CDU politician Carsten Borchert received a broad majority, the SPD candidate Armin Willingmann failed: 48 MPs voted against him and 33 for him. This means that the new state parliament presidium initially only includes two vice-presidents in addition to the president - instead of three, as was previously planned.
This constitutes the new Magdeburg state parliament. How long it will last is uncertain. The AfD does not rule out voting for a dissolution of parliament if its top candidate Ulrich Siegmund is not elected prime minister with a stable majority in the coming months. Saxony-Anhalt will soon either face new elections or – what seems to have become much more likely today – a state government led by the AfD.
Federal Minister for Family Affairs Karin Prien, currently visiting Ukraine, spoke from Kyiv about the election of Tobias Rausch as President of the State Parliament of Saxony-Anhalt. When asked about the election in Saxony-Anhalt, Prien said that it was "very depressing, also and not only for Jews in Germany, that a representative of a clearly right-wing extremist party in Saxony-Anhalt was elected there today."
The AfD parliamentary group leader in Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, wants to stand for election as Prime Minister in December. BSW founder Sahra Wagenknecht told Stern: “The election of Ulrich Siegmund as Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt has become probable as of today.”
