The AfD's Tobias Rausch became Landtag president on Tuesday, 6 October, with four more votes than the AfD and BSW together hold, according to Der Tagesspiegel and watson.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggested at the Deutschland-Gipfel that other deputies may have voted for Rausch, drawing rejection from Irene Mihalic of the Greens and Ines Schwerdtner of the Left.
The CDU, CSU and SPD coalition committee met on Wednesday evening, 7 October, for about four hours, the first session after the summer break.
Ulrich Siegmund (AfD) is the candidate to succeed incumbent Sven Schulze, with the vote announced for December.
The Saxony-Anhalt Landtag held its first session on Tuesday, 6 October, one month after the state election of 6 September. Tobias Rausch of the AfD was elected parliament president with 48 of 83 votes. The ballot was secret, and his total was four higher than the combined strength of the AfD and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which had declared it would support the AfD candidate. The SPD, Greens and Left had announced they would vote no. Rzeczpospolita reports that the AfD took almost 44 percent of the vote in the September election, while watson reports the party narrowly missed an absolute majority of seats. Hans-Thomas Tillschneider was also elected vice-president of the Landtag, which watson says was probably backed by CDU votes.
Suspicion has centred on the CDU, whose faction has been under pressure since the vote. Watson writes that the surplus votes almost certainly came from the weakened CDU ranks, and says a Zeit investigation supports that assumption. Alexander Räuscher, a CDU politician who did not win back his Landtag seat, told the Tagesspiegel that the party should allow Ulrich Siegmund to become minister-president, a vote the AfD candidate is expected to face in December.
“The election result requires that Mr Siegmund becomes minister-president. The CDU should make his election possible.”
Räuscher added that the CDU should vote for Siegmund not because they are his fans, but because the voters want it. He also called Siegmund a professional failure who would not really want to govern.
At the Deutschland-Gipfel hosted by Handelsblatt and WirtschaftsWoche, Merz warned against drawing hasty conclusions from the secret ballot. He suggested that votes for Rausch may have come from other deputies intending to damage the Union. Merz said at least two, perhaps three, groupings in the Landtag are doing everything to undermine cohesion in democracy and that he trusts them with anything.
“False-flag operations don't only exist in the military sphere, they also exist in politics.”
Greens parliamentary manager Irene Mihalic told the Rheinische Post that the speculation was an outrageous insult. She said that a responsible party chairman should have promised clarification within his own ranks.
“As a responsible party chairman, it would have suited Friedrich Merz well to promise clarification within his own ranks.”
Left party leader Ines Schwerdtner told RTL and ntv that the idea that Left, Green or SPD votes were involved was total nonsense. She said she could rule out with great certainty that Left members voted for Rausch, and she accused Merz of a diversion and demanded consequences from him.
The CDU, CSU and SPD coalition committee met on Wednesday evening, 7 October, for about four hours, its first session after the summer break. It followed three eastern state elections that brought the AfD strong gains and cost Merz's CDU heavy losses. According to ARD, participants described the mood as good and very constructive, and the session as not spectacular. A text message from the faction leaders said the parties were determined not to leave the country to the extremists. SPD chief and vice-chancellor Lars Klingbeil spoke of a taboo break. Watson concludes that the firewall has not collapsed, but it shows signs of decay.
The Landtag is due to elect a new minister-president in December, with the incumbent Sven Schulze facing the AfD's Ulrich Siegmund. Handelsblatt reports that the Verfassungsschutz has classified the AfD's Saxony-Anhalt regional association as confirmed right-wing extremist since November 2023. A Frankfurter Allgemeine commentary expects the AfD and the BSW to use the period before December for Bundesrat initiatives or committee seats.
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Tobias Rausch of the AfD won the presidency of the Saxony-Anhalt Landtag on Tuesday with four more votes than his party and the BSW hold together. Chancellor Friedrich Merz then suggested that deputies from other parties may have voted for him to discredit the CDU, prompting angry rebuttals from the Greens and the Left.
AI text based on reports by DIE WELT, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Rzeczpospolita and other publishers. Changed .