Saxony-Anhalt: Clear majority for Tobias Rausch: State parliament elects AfD candidate as president for the first time

Magdeburg. In Saxony-Anhalt, MPs elected Tobias Rausch, the AfD candidate, as state parliament president for the first time on Tuesday. He received 48 votes, 29 votes against and five abstentions; one member of the CDU was absent due to illness. The election was expected before the start of the constituent meeting; the BSW had assured its support in advance. The AfD also provides one of the vice presidents.

Since the party has 39 seats and the BSW only has five MPs, it is clear that MPs from the other factions also voted for the AfD candidate. Sven Schulze (CDU), incumbent Prime Minister, had announced in advance that his group wanted to abstain from voting. Apparently only a few followed the announcement.

Tobias Rausch announced after the election that he did not want to hold the office as a representative of a faction, but of the entire house. He does not want to align the office against a political force, as has happened in the past. “But I don’t want to turn this into a reckoning with the past,” announced Rausch. The AfD MP called for sensible interactions among one another. “Political toughness and mutual respect are not mutually exclusive,” he said.