AfD politician Tobias Rausch was elected speaker of Saxony-Anhalt’s state parliament on Tuesday, the first time a member of a far-right party has held a regional parliamentary speakership in Germany since the second world war.
Rausch, a former estate agent, secured 48 of the 82 votes cast in the first round at the parliament’s inaugural sitting in Magdeburg. Twenty-nine members opposed him and five abstained. Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, from the AfD’s more extreme wing, was elected deputy later that day.
The AfD won nearly 44% of the vote in last month’s state election and holds 39 seats, short of an absolute majority. Five members of the leftwing BSW party had said they would support Rausch; the secret ballot result indicates that four other members voted for him too.
Other parties have sought to avoid cooperation with the AfD, but the vote showed that some politicians were willing to cross that boundary. BSW deputy leader Christian Leye argued that the AfD’s vote share could not be ignored. Saxony-Anhalt’s intelligence agency classifies the party as rightwing extremist.
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