The Chair Declares the Result

The parliament of Saxony-Anhalt met for the first time since its election on 6 September on Tuesday in Magdeburg, and elected Tobias Rausch of the Alternative für Deutschland as its president. He received 48 votes. Twenty-nine members voted against him and five abstained, with 82 of the 83 members present, MDR reported; a CDU member, Frank Bommersbach, was absent. Rausch, who is 35, is the first member of his party to lead a German state parliament. The AfD’s branch in the state is classified by the state’s domestic intelligence agency as confirmed right-wing extremist, DW reported.

The AfD holds 39 seats. The five members of the BSW, the party founded by Sahra Wagenknecht, had said they would vote for Rausch, which made 44. The ballot was secret, and four votes beyond that number came from somewhere else. Sven Schulze, who leads the CDU group and remains the state’s acting premier, had said before the vote that CDU members were advised to abstain, MDR reported. Only five members abstained. Sandra Hietel-Heuer, a deputy whip of the CDU group, told MDR she had not expected 48 votes and had not voted for Rausch herself. “It’s a secret ballot, so of course, in principle, anybody is suspect,” Thorsten Frei of the CDU said, according to DW. Lars Klingbeil of the SPD, the vice-chancellor and finance minister, said: “Not only the BSW, but also the CDU must urgently explain how this could have happened.” Nobody has said how the four votes were cast, and a secret ballot is designed so that nobody can show it.

Later in the day, after a suspension of about two hours and a dispute over the rules for nominating deputies, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider of the AfD was elected first vice-president with 44 votes to 38 and no abstentions. Thomas Schulze, who leads the BSW group, had told MDR that Tillschneider was not electable for his party. The Guardian reported that it was not immediately clear who had voted for him.

What the office holds

The state constitution, in the version published by the parliament and last amended on 4 May 2026, describes the presidency in Article 49. The president or a vice-president chairs the sittings under the standing orders. The president holds domestic authority and police power on the parliament’s premises, represents the state in the parliament’s affairs, runs its administration and hires and dismisses its staff. The president also appoints and dismisses the president and members of the state audit office and the state data protection commissioner. MDR adds a function that does not appear in that article: the president signs the laws the parliament passes and, in doing so, checks that each was adopted in the way the constitution requires.

Removing a president is harder than electing one. Article 49(5) allows it only on a motion by a majority of the members, and the decision needs the votes of two-thirds of the members. In an 83-seat chamber, by this publication’s arithmetic, that is 56 votes. The AfD alone holds more than a third of the seats.

The vote the chair will count

Rausch’s term will cover the vote that decides who governs. Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s lead candidate, has said he will stand for premier in December. The day before Tuesday’s sitting he said he would stand only in the first ballot, MDR reported. The constitution sets no date by which that ballot must take place, as FOCUS online reported after asking the parliament’s administration, and until a successor takes office, Article 71(2) obliges the outgoing premier to carry on the government’s business.

Article 65 sets the sequence. The premier is elected without debate, in a secret ballot. In the first ballot, a candidate needs the votes of a majority of the members, which is 42. If nobody reaches it, a second ballot follows within seven days under the same rule. If that fails, the parliament must decide within a further fourteen days whether to end the legislative term early. If the early end is not adopted by a majority of the members, “a further ballot takes place without delay. Elected is whoever receives the majority of the votes cast,” in this publication’s translation.

That route to dissolution is easier than the ordinary one. Under Article 60, ending the term early needs two-thirds of the members, and the motion cannot be made until six months after the term began. Inside the Article 65 sequence, a majority of the members is enough. Rausch told RTL and ntv before his election that if the AfD did not win a majority in the first ballot, it would have none for the rest of the term, and that the party could then consider dissolving the parliament, according to MDR.

The last sentence of Article 65 is the one the chair will have to apply. Article 51 says that abstentions count as votes not cast, and that the rule applies to elections the parliament holds. It does not say what a ballot must offer. The parliament’s administration told FOCUS online that a candidate has a majority of the votes cast when he receives more yes votes than no votes. FOCUS also recalled that the parliament has held a third ballot once before, in 1994, when the ballot paper listed the two candidates and an abstention box, with no way to vote no, and that some lawyers consider that arrangement unconstitutional. The result of the vote, the report noted, is declared by the president of the parliament. A party that disputes it can go to the state constitutional court, which under Article 75 decides disputes over the rights and duties of the state’s highest organs.

Whether any of this is tested depends on numbers the AfD does not yet have. 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,” the Guardian reported. The CDU, SPD, Greens and Left continue to rule out cooperation with the AfD, according to DW.

What was said in the chamber

In his first speech as president, Rausch said he wanted to be president of the whole parliament and not of one group, and that its rules should not be shaped according to whom they help or harm, MDR reported. He promised, in the Guardian’s account, to “take different opinions seriously and to try to take decisions in a transparent way.” The AfD’s federal co-leaders, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, called his election a historic step. Susan Sziborra-Seidlitz, who leads the Greens group, told the chamber: “Whoever has invested a representative of extremist and anti-constitutional party with this office will bear responsibility for the consequences,” as the Guardian reported it.

Sources

Articles 45, 49, 51, 60, 65, 71 and 75 of the Constitution of Saxony-Anhalt were read in the consolidated text published by the Landtag, which states that it was last amended on 4 May 2026; translations are this publication’s. Vote counts, Bommersbach’s absence, the statements of Schulze, Hietel-Heuer, Thomas Schulze and Rausch, and Siegmund’s first-ballot remark are from MDR’s live coverage of 6 October. Frei and Klingbeil are quoted as DW reported them; the Guardian is the source for Tillschneider’s backing, the BSW position and the quotations from Rausch and Sziborra-Seidlitz. The absence of a deadline, the administration’s reading of the third ballot and the 1994 precedent are as FOCUS online reported them. The count needed to remove a president is this publication’s calculation.