AfD passes milestone with first parliamentary speaker post in Saxony-Anhalt

Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) passed another political milestone on Tuesday when it secured its first parliamentary speaker post in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.A month after the AfD state victory there, with 44 per cent support, party election manager Tobias Rausch was elected to the influential political role on 48 votes, with 29 opposing and five abstentions.In a secret ballot with 42 votes for a majority, the 35-year-old property manager was backed by 39 AfD members and most likely five MPs from the BSW grouping – meaning he attracted four votes of MPs from other parties.That sets a precedent for December, when the AfD will propose its leader Ulrich Siegmund as state prime minister. He would be Germany’s first far-right leader since 1945.READ MORE“This is a step in the right direction, setting a clear signal for the political future of this country,” said Siegmund of Tuesday’s vote on national radio. “For many years all kinds of state roles were blocked to us, but now the tide has turned.”Ulrich Siegmund attends the first session of the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Rausch made similar observations in his first speech as parliamentary speaker while insisting that, while in office, he would “not settle any scores from the past”.“I will discharge the duties of this office as speaker of the entire state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt,” he added.In Germany’s constitutional hierarchy, a state parliamentary speaker ranks higher than a prime minister. As well as overseeing parliamentary procedure, the speaker receives high-ranking visitors and represents the state at key events – including memorials of Nazi-era crimes. On Tuesday, opposition leaders promised to push back against any AfD revisionism towards Germany’s fascist past – or incitement against minorities in the present, such as a so-called “remigration” party policy to forcibly deport non-ethnic Germans.Green Party parliamentary leader in Saxony-Anhalt, Susan Sziborra-Seidlitz, said her party would “speak out when people are disparaged because of their origin, their faith, or their way of life ... and if minority rights and the opposition are curtailed”.Protesters react outside the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament as Tobias Rausch is elected speaker. Photograph: Maja Hitij/Getty About 500 protesters gathered outside the state parliament building on Tuesday, many carrying signs referencing the local AfD’s “confirmed extremist” classification from the state intelligence service. Others carried placards reading “never again is now”, a reference to a postwar German motto.AfD advances in Saxony-Anhalt are likely to have a wider knock-on effect on German politics, in particular on the so-called “firewall” that proscribes mainstream political parties co-operating with the far-right.One key exception is the BSW. Its founder Sahra Wagenknecht praised her state MPs for “ending the firewall idiocy” of German politics.[ Anti-immigration and pro-Russia – why did Germans vote for the AfD?Opens in new window ]She denounced Nazi-AfD parallels made by other parties as a “trivialisation” of Germany’s fascist past. Ahead of the vote, the leader of the Left Party compared Rausch to Hermann Göring, the first Nazi Reichstag parliamentary speaker. “It’s not a [Hermann] Göring 2.0 being elected here,” Wagenknecht added.Rausch, an AfD MP in the state parliament in Magdeburg for the last decade, masterminded the party’s TikTok-driven election surge to its highest-ever election result.He attracted critical attention last year when it emerged that he had placed relatives – and members of his local football team – in well-paid parliamentary jobs in Magdeburg and Berlin.[ Voters in eastern German state have blown up post-unification politicsOpens in new window ]As power looms in Magdeburg, AfD leaders in Berlin and Brussels are planning a major pivot away from the party’s founding political promise of 2013 to take Germany out of the euro.Instead, a new paper proposes holding a referendum on continuing Germany’s EU membership unless the bloc is transformed into a looser ‌alliance ​of sovereign nations, with national opt-outs on sensitive issues such as migration and jointly-issued EU debt.