Germany's first far-right state parliament speaker since World War II
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- 2026-10-07 18:42:55
- Updated
- 2026-10-07 18:42:55
[The Financial News] A candidate from the far-right camp was elected speaker in a German state parliament election with help from the far-left camp. It is the first time since World War II that a far-right party has won the speakership of a German state parliament.
Local media, including Deutsche Welle (DW), reported that AfD lawmaker Tobias Rausch was elected in the speaker election held at the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament on the 6th (local time). He received 48 of the 82 votes.
The AfD, described as far-right, won landslide victories in the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament election on the 6th of last month and the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state parliament election on the 20th. Both regions are in the former East Germany, where dissatisfaction over economic hardship and anti-immigrant sentiment are strong.
Although the AfD won a landslide in Saxony-Anhalt, it secured only 39 seats in the state parliament, leaving it unable to elect a speaker on its own. In the vote on the 6th, five lawmakers from the far-left Alliance for Social Justice and Economic Reason (BSW) cast ballots for Rausch, from the opposing camp.
Local media emphasized that, in addition to the BSW votes, four votes from other established mainstream parties also helped the AfD. In Germany, whose political establishment experienced the Nazi regime, an unwritten “firewall” principle against cooperating with far-right parties had been maintained, but the four votes cast in this election broke that principle. The left, including the Social Democratic Party (SPD), suspected that the right-leaning Christian Democratic Union (CDU) had helped the AfD.
That day, Deputy Chancellor Lars Klingbeil, co-leader of the SPD, said, “Electing a far-right figure to an official position like this breaks a taboo,” and called on the CDU to explain itself. That evening, SPD members of the Bundestag marched through central Berlin carrying copies of the Basic Law (constitution) in a protest.
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