The AfD Takes a State Speakership, a First Since the War
Tobias Rausch, 35, has been elected speaker of the Saxony-Anhalt parliament, the first time a far-right party has held the post in post-war Germany. His party fell three seats short of a majority, so he needed nine votes from other benches: five came from the hard-left BSW and four from members who have not been identified. “The days of political firewalls should be a thing of the past,” he said.
The four unidentified votes are the whole story, because Friedrich Merz has ruled out cooperation with the AfD and fourteen of the Christian Democrats’ fifteen state members took part in the ballot, of whom five were meant to abstain. Whether any of them voted for Mr Rausch is unconfirmed and is now the question in Magdeburg. The post itself is largely ceremonial — chairing debates, controlling access to the building, representing the chamber — but the symbolism is the point, and the party made a related point before the vote by successfully arguing to be moved from the right fringe of the chamber to its centre. The AfD in Saxony-Anhalt is classified as right-wing extremist by Germany’s domestic intelligence service; it is pro-Russian, anti-immigration, and has proposed segregating child refugees in schools. More than three hundred protesters outside carried banners reading “Never again is now”. Susan Sziborra-Seidlitz of the Greens said a line had been crossed and that “we will not sit by when rights are curtailed”. The serious test comes in December, when the local AfD leader Ulrich Siegmund seeks the state premiership and needs 42 of 83 seats. Watch whether the Christian Democrats can account for every one of their votes.