NRW state parliament: Senior president should be the longest-serving member in the future

In future, the senior president of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia will no longer be the oldest member, but rather the longest-serving. To achieve this, the state constitution should be changed, as the CDU, SPD, Greens and FDP factions jointly announced. Officially, this is about “parliamentary experience”, but in fact there will not be a senior AfD president for a long time.

Background: When a new state parliament is constituted, the session is initially chaired by the senior president until the new state parliament president is elected. When the new state parliament started in Thuringia in 2024, the then 73-year-old AfD politician Jürgen Treutler began the session - as the oldest member. She sank into chaos.

Without mentioning the AfD by name, the CDU, SPD, Greens and FDP write in their press release that they want to change the senior presidency “so that the constituent session of a new state parliament runs in an orderly manner and does not become the scene of political events.”

As a young party, the AfD will not have a representative who sits in the state parliament longer than representatives from the CDU or SPD for many years. This means that the senior president is automatically appointed by another faction.

The CDU, SPD, Greens and FDP also want to change the state parliament's rules of procedure. This is how the committee chairmen will be elected in the future. So far, the respective parliamentary groups – including the AfD – have been able to determine the committee chair assigned to them themselves. For example, AfD MP Hartmut Beucker currently heads the state parliament's science committee.

In the Bundestag – where the committee heads are already elected – there is not a single AfD chairman because the candidates never received a majority. This could also be the case in the NRW state parliament from next year.

“This bill will make the state constitution less democratic,” said AfD parliamentary group leader Martin Vincentz to the dpa. “Minority rights are being curtailed, power structures are being cemented, and all of this is done by the parties in which fewer and fewer voters trust.”

In other state parliaments, the CDU, SPD, Greens and sometimes other parties are also trying to keep AfD representatives away from positions by making changes to the state constitution or rules of procedure. In Rhineland-Palatinate, the CDU, SPD and Greens, with the old majority, increased the quorum from which a committee of inquiry can be set up. This means that the AfD parliamentary group in Mainz is dependent on colleagues to set up such a committee.