The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has become Germany's first far-right party to secure the position of speaker of a regional parliament since the second world war. Tobias Rausch, a former estate agent, was elected in the first round of voting on Tuesday in Saxony-Anhalt, winning 48 out of the 82 votes cast.
Historic election in Magdeburg
Rausch's election to the role of president of the parliament – and its speaker – took place at the inaugural gathering of members in the state capital, Magdeburg. Twenty-nine voted against Rausch and five abstained. Later in the day, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, part of the AfD's more extreme wing, was elected as Rausch's deputy.
The AfD, which is classed as “rightwing extremist” by the eastern state's intelligence agency, won nearly 44% of votes in elections last month, dealing a hammer blow to Germany's chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and his centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU).
Breaking the firewall
The AfD parliamentary group holds 39 seats, narrowly short of an absolute majority. Five politicians from the BSW, a small leftwing party that echoes the AfD's stances on Russia and immigration, had already said they would vote for Rausch. Tuesday's result means that four other MPs voted for the 35-year-old in the secret ballot.
The willingness of politicians to break the “firewall” – a moral agreement among other parties to shun the AfD – gives the party a chance of being able to form a government in the state. The BSW's support for Rausch came after the party's founder, Sahra Wagenknecht, declared it was time to do away with “firewall idiocy”. Her deputy, Christian Leye, said the “firewall is not working” and the votes of nearly 44% of electors could not be ignored.
“We need an intelligent way of dealing with the AfD and that means dealing with the content of their programme instead of a firewall,” Leye told German media.
Deputy speaker and controversy
It was not immediately clear who was behind Tillschneider's election because the BSW had said it would refuse to vote for him. He received 44 votes. As the architect of the AfD's “radical” manifesto, he is lined up to become culture and science minister in the state. He has referred to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as “a real man with a sound set of values” and accused immigrants of “streaming in here in masses … wanting to squander our money”.
Tillschneider is a scholar of Islamic studies who has described Islam as a “fungus” growing on the “German oak”. His family emigrated from Romania to Germany in the 1980s.
In his acceptance speech, Rausch promised to represent all voices and “take different opinions seriously and to try to take decisions in a transparent way”. He was applauded by his own parliamentary group and the ranks of the BSW.
Scandal and political fallout
Rausch was one of the key figures in a nepotism scandal over AfD MPs employing family members in parliament. He denied claims that several of his siblings and a brother-in-law were working in the state parliament but confirmed he was employing several players from the football club where he is a member.
He is a close ally and confidant of Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD's lead candidate, who is positioning himself to take over as leader of Saxony-Anhalt. Siegmund has yet to say which parties or politicians have agreed to cooperate with the AfD, only that “negotiations are going well”. The AfD claims to be courting members of the CDU to break the firewall, a claim CDU leaders deny.
The BSW says it will support an AfD-led parliament only if a nonpartisan figure is appointed to lead it, a position the AfD rejects. Siegmund has until December to form a government.
Opposition MPs raised alarm over the breaching of the firewall. “Whoever has invested a representative of extremist and anti-constitutional party with this office will bear responsibility for the consequences,” said Green MP Susan Sziborra-Seidlitz, to loud applause.
The result of the Saxony-Anhalt poll, along with two other regional elections in September, has piled huge pressure on Merz, who pledged on taking office in 2025 that he would halve the AfD's support by boosting the economy and reducing immigration. Instead, the CDU's support has more or less halved and that of the AfD has surged to 30% in national polls.
Before the vote, Eva von Angern of the leftwing Die Linke party and the longest-serving member of the Saxony-Anhalt parliament, drew parallels between Rausch's election to the post of speaker, and Hermann Göring's use of that role in the Reichstag in the 1930s to facilitate Adolf Hitler's rise to power. She claimed that the negative consequences of the AfD's win in the state were already being felt in lower tourist numbers and teachers withdrawing job applications.
