Ulrich Siegmund is aiming for the AfD prime ministership in Saxony-Anhalt

Shortly before Christmas the time has come - Ulrich Siegmund wants to be elected as the first AfD Prime Minister in Germany a few days before the festival. Although he doesn't yet have his own majority or coalition behind him, he sounds confident. “I wouldn’t go into the election of prime minister if I didn’t have stability as a certainty beforehand,” says Siegmund in Magdeburg.

“I assume that I will be elected in the first round with a significant majority so that this first round is successful,” said the 35-year-old. Like that? He does not provide precise answers and refers to the ongoing explorations with BSW and individual MPs.

Siegmund repeatedly emphasizes reliability and stability as essential. It doesn't happen quickly, many avenues are new for the AfD and they want to "explore them precisely and conscientiously". He emphasizes: “You can’t rush this.”

After all, he lets this much be known: “But it is a format above a minority government, so that I have a basis of trust that is so binding that I can use it as a basis for five years.” Ultimately, you have to decide on budgets and get your basic positions passed in parliament. It's about migration, internal security and a “peace perspective”.

In the election on September 6th, the AfD, with Siegmund as the top candidate, was the strongest force with 43.8 percent, ahead of the CDU with 17.2 percent. The AfD is currently holding talks with the BSW about forming a government. However, the BSW rules out a coalition. The discussions are about content that an AfD-led minority government would have to implement. Results are not yet known.

Before the state elections, Siegmund had repeatedly ruled out governing without his own majority - he only wanted to be elected Prime Minister if his party could govern alone, he emphasized several times. Then came the change of course.

However, how Siegmund comes into office remains unclear. The AfD has 39 members in parliament. The CDU, Left, Greens and SPD together also have 39 seats, the BSW is represented by 5 representatives. For a majority in parliament, 42 votes are needed.

However, the BSW has announced that it will abstain from the Prime Minister election. In the third round, a majority of the votes cast is sufficient. And there is a threat of a stalemate: If all 39 AfD MPs vote for Siegmund, while the 5 BSW MPs abstain and all other MPs vote against Siegmund, there would be equality in the votes cast. Then the 35-year-old could only hope that he would receive votes from other ranks in the secret vote.

Is Siegmund's announcement primarily a tactical maneuver to draw attention back to himself? Just a few minutes earlier there was an initial exchange between the SPD, the Greens, the Left and the BSW. The question was, for example, whether there could be a non-partisan prime minister as a way out of the stalemate. The four factions do not have a majority in the Magdeburg parliament; they only exist together with the CDU. But the Christian Democrats had previously rejected the invitation and see themselves in the opposition.

Already after the first meeting it was clear that such a five-party cooperation would be on very shaky ground. For the SPD, the Greens and the Left, cooperation with the BSW is out of the question if Sahra Wagenknecht's party also cooperates alternately with the AfD.

The BSW is demonstrating its new influence and wants to continue speaking to everyone. “I see similarities with both sides, I also see differences with both sides,” says co-country chief John Lucas Dittrich. If the SPD, Left or Greens wanted to implement positions from their election program, they would have to talk to the BSW. “If you don’t want that, you have to break off the talks.”

And Siegmund almost overshadows another important decision with his announcement of the schedule. The parliamentary managing director of the AfD parliamentary group, Tobias Rausch, is to be elected state parliament president at the inaugural state parliament session next Tuesday. The AfD parliamentary group unanimously chose the 35-year-old as its candidate for the office, as Siegmund describes quite briefly. Rausch has been a member of the state parliament since 2016.

Rausch doesn't need to worry - the BSW had already announced in advance that it would co-elect an AfD parliamentary president. It is the first test of cooperation between the AfD and BSW. Even after the conversation with the other parties, Dittrich defended the BSW's decision: "It stays that way."